Nine-banded Armadillo in South Carolina 
3 
Fig. 1. Past and recent occurrence of the nine-banded armadillo, Dasypus 
novemcinctus, in South Carolina. Solid dots indicate the localities of museum 
specimens. Open circles indicate the 1980-to-present localities resulting from this 
report. Solid triangles indicate the localities of the early (pre-1980) sightings in 
the state resulting from this report, records at the Charleston Museum, and 
records from Golley (1966), Humphrey (1974), and Sanders (1978). Limits of the 
mean annual number of freeze-days are indicated by the numbered solid lines. 
Routes of the Interstate Highway System in South Carolina are indicated by the 
dotted lines. 
Early records of the nine-banded armadillo in South Carolina were 
most likely the result of escaped or released individuals that had been 
imported into the state (Humphrey 1974, Sanders 1978). Most of these 
records came from localities close to major highways (Fig. 1) that carry 
tourist traffic north from Florida (Sanders 1978). Other records from 
farther north along the Atlantic seaboard of the United States have 
occurred in North Carolina, Washington, D.C., Delaware (Humphrey 
1974, Lee et al. 1982), and Connecticut (UCONN 11249). The results of 
the survey determined that introductions by humans are still occurring 
in South Carolina. However, because of the recent increased frequency 
and concentration of records of this species in the southern portion of 
