RELATIONSHIPS OF EDENTATES 



THE ARMADILLO 



The " little knight in armour " of South America, 

 and of that continent only, is perhaps about as unlike 

 the " dreaming sloth of pallid hue " of the same con- 

 tinent as any two beasts can well be, that are admittedly 

 both mammals. And yet, while some of the other types 

 the Manis and the Orycteropus which are by some 

 placed in the same order, that of Edentates, are really 

 unlike the armadillo, there are numerous facts in the 

 structure of the sloth which show it to be akin. In no 

 other part of the world than in America are there, or 

 have there been ever, so far as our knowledge enables us 

 to state, animals belonging to these three types, the 

 sloths, armadillos and anteaters. The unique structural 

 peculiarity which they share is that the vertebrae of the 

 back are fastened together successively by joints addi- 

 tional to those which exist in other mammals. It is 

 curious that the opinion of the zoologist is reinforced by 

 that of a practical hunter, who thought of a rare kind of 

 armadillo, remarkable for possessing its bony skin plates 

 only along the side and not on the back, that it was an 

 hybrid between the armadillo and the ant-bear. Funda- 

 mentally related though the armadillo and the Myrmeco- 

 phaga are, they are obviously most diverse in external 

 form and feature. The immovable stolidity of the sloth 

 and its comical face, the stately gait of the ant-eater and 

 its huge bushy tail, contrast with the cheerful pattering 

 waddle of the armadillo, sheathed in its thick armour. 

 The armadillo or, rather, the armadillos, for there are 

 at least six distinct genera, many of which contain several 

 species has the unique peculiarity among mammals 

 both living and extinct (with the single exception of 

 certain armoured whales of great antiquity) of possessing 

 a defensive armature composed of bony plates imbedded 

 in the skin. But these bony plates do not make it a 

 tortoise any more than the scales of the Manis make it a 



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