In 2015, the Giant Armadillo Project won the Whitley Awards, known in the conservation community as the “Green Oscars.” Ecosystem engineers Their 10 years of research have led to the publication of about 30 papers and the production of a documentary by the BBC channel, “ Hotel Armadillo,” which aired in 2017. Through the data generated, the team has found that giant armadillos are active for about five hours at night, walking on average 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) during this period. They implanted intra-abdominal GPS devices with activity monitors in seven of the animals. Since the end of 2019, the Giant Armadillo Project’s biologists have also relied on a new technology that has made further discovery possible. “Previously it was thought that there should be one or two puppies, but our studies have seen the birth of only one, with a three-year gap between each gestation,” Desbiez says. Thanks to this Brazilian initiative, biologists now know that a giant armadillo pregnancy lasts about five months, with the mother giving birth to a single offspring. After giving birth, she took the puppy to another burrow and stayed there for another 15 days. “We noticed that the female that used to change the holes every one or two nights suddenly remained inside one for 25 days. “I believe one of our greatest discoveries was about its reproduction,” Desbiez says. Camera traps have since snapped three other little giant armadillos. These technologies have made it possible for the researchers to make an unprecedented record of a giant armadillo pup in the wild. Much of the research generated by the Giant Armadillo Project team - gathered through field surveys, GPS devices, and camouflaged camera traps spread throughout the forest - remains unpublished. Image courtesy of the Giant Armadillo Project. As a result, other species typically use it to protect themselves from intense heat and cold. The temperature inside a giant armadillo burrow is typically about 25☌ (77☏). “The first picture I took of the giant armadillo changed my life.” That was nearly 10 years ago, and even then Desbiez didn’t spot the animal in person: the picture came from a camera trap in Mato Grosso do Sul state. “It’s like a living fossil,” Desbiez says. The largest claw measured was about 14 centimeters (5.5 inches) long - bigger than those of a polar bear. The giant armadillo is protected by an armor comprising scales, and armed with scythe-shaped claws.
It can weigh up to 50 kilograms (110 pounds) and grow to a length of 1.5 meters (5 feet) from snout to tail.
The giant armadillo is a nocturnal creature that spends most of its time inside the ingenious and vast network of tunnels that it digs, which helps explain why sightings are so rare. They’ve made several discoveries about the largest of the 20 armadillo species in the world. Looking to change that is the Giant Armadillo Project, created in 2010 by two Brazilian organizations, the Institute for Ecological Research (IPÊ) and the Institute for the Conservation of Wild Animals (ICAS). Finding one is like finding a needle in a haystack.”Īccording to Desbiez, one of the major threats to the giant armadillo ( Priodontes maximus) is basically the lack of knowledge about it. The connection with the giant armadillo is through indirect evidence. “It’s basically a forest ghost,” Desbiez says. They trek through the Brazilian biomes of the Cerrado grasslands, the Atlantic Forest, and the Pantanal wetlands, looking for any indication of the presence of an animal rarely seen despite its size: the giant armadillo. Image courtesy of the Giant Armadillo Project.Īrnaud Desbiez leads a team of biologists, but their work is more reminiscent of that of paleontologists.
0 kommentar(er)
