Delightful Dillos

Before coming to Zoo Atlanta, armadillos were not even on my radar. I mean I knew what an armadillo was, but I just vaguely thought of them as weird, armored things digging holes and eating bugs. My first interaction with a live armadillo happened while I was still working in the Education Department. I took our male southern three banded armadillo Finnegan on encounter and just fell in love. He is absolute chaos; he loves to sprint around and flip his kennel on encounters. If you have been to an animal encounter with Finn, I’m sure you also fell in love.

After working in education, I moved over to the Ambassador Animal Department and was able to work very closely with Finnegan. We did training sessions, and I worked on giving him lots of enrichment – his favorites are digging and destroying things. One day at a team meeting we discussed that the team was ready to welcome another southern three-banded armadillo. This would be a young female named Persephone, who would hopefully be a successful mom. I nearly cried, I was so excited. Instead of crying though, I did a lot of training sessions with her and taught her how to voluntarily kennel! She is also very fun on encounter, but a little less chaotic than Finnegan.

This summer was THE armadillo summer though. Our team received news that Persephone was indeed pregnant! We set up a nest cam so we could monitor Persephone without having to disturb her. It’s hard to be a new mom, so we wanted to give her a quiet and safe space. I was so excited to watch the nest cam footage and be able to see a baby. Persephone gave birth to Equinox in the early morning hours of March 20 (the spring equinox). I don’t even know how to describe my level of excitement – for Persephone, for three-banded armadillos, for our team!

Even though he is only a few months old, Nox is already on his own in our outdoor habitat! Hopefully he will be ready to go on encounter soon and meet all his adoring fans! But before I go, I must tell you some fun things about armadillos. So, here’s three fun facts about three-banded armadillos.

Armadillos are nocturnal, meaning they are awake at night and sleep during the day. They have terrible vision. They’re awake at night, it’s not like anyone can see much. So, they mostly use their sense of smell. Three-banded armadillos are the only species of armadillo that can fully close in a ball! Their head plate and tail fit together like little puzzle pieces.

If you see me on grounds and want to talk about all things armadillo, feel free to stop me! Seriously though, I think my friends and family are tired of hearing about armadillos.

Rachael R., Ambassador Animals Team