Spherical armadillos

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Spherical armadillos
Southern spherical armadillo (Tolypeutes matacus)

Southern spherical armadillo ( Tolypeutes matacus )

Systematics
Superordinate : Sub-articulated animals (Xenarthra)
Order : Armored siderails (Cingulata)
without rank: Armadillos (Dasypoda)
Family : Chlamyphoridae
Subfamily : Tolypeutinae
Genre : Spherical armadillos
Scientific name
Tolypeutes
Illiger , 1811

The ball armadillos ( Tolypeutes ), also known as three-banded armadillos , are a genus from the group of armadillos (Dasypoda) with two species. They live in dry and open to tree-lined landscapes in South America and feed mainly on insects and sometimes on plant material. As the only representatives of the armadillos, they can curl up into a ball when threatened. Both species are considered to be endangered to different degrees.

description

Northern spherical armadillo ( Tolypeutes tricinctus )

Ball armadillos reach a head-trunk length of 21 to 31 cm, the short, strong and rather triangular tail becomes 5 to 8 cm long. The weight is 1 to 2 kg, so they are rather small armadillos . The head has a characteristic triangular front plate made of small bone shields, rounded at the side edges. The dentition shows a tooth structure atypical for mammals with single-rooted and enamel-free teeth. In the upper jaw halves there are 8 or 9, in those of the lower jaw there are 9 such teeth, a total of 34 to 36. The distinctive back armor is very hard and high and clearly rounded. It consists of a fixed shoulder and pelvic area, both separated by 1 to 4, but typically 3 movable ligaments. The entire armor is also made up of small, usually five- to hexagonal, bone shields, as is the armor of the tail. The basic color of the animals is dark brown. Except for a light, bristle-like hair on the belly, they are usually without fur. The short limbs each have five toes on the hind feet, which end in arch-like grave claws. While the southern spherical armadillo only has three to four toes with particularly long claws on its front feet, the northern spherical armadillo has a total of five.

distribution

The home of the spherical armadillos is central South America , they live in Brazil , Bolivia , Paraguay and northern Argentina . Here they inhabit open landscapes and rather dry forests that grow on calcareous soils, especially in the Gran Chaco and in the thorn bush savannas of the Caatinga and Cerrado regions.

Way of life

Territorial behavior

The forefeet of the spherical armadillos touch the tip of the claw, side and front view
Standing and curled up armadillo

Globular armadillos usually live solitary and are nocturnal, but can also appear during the day if necessary. When running, they put their front feet on with the tips of their claws, but their back feet with the whole sole. They are considered bad graves, but they do build their own burrows. In addition, they use abandoned shelters of other animals or retreat to dense vegetation to sleep . Sometimes you can find several animals in the same hiding place. When threatened, spherical armadillos usually flee or curl up completely into a ball, something only representatives of this genus are capable of doing. To do this, they hide the legs inside, and the hard top of the head and tail form the clasp. An animal makes a snorting to hissing noise, which can be traced back to a strong exhalation. Initially, a small gap remains open, only when touched does the ball snap shut. In this position it can hardly be captured by predators .

food

The diet of the globular armadillos consists mainly of insects and their larvae , primarily ants and termites . The food is taken up opportunistically from the ground, only very rarely do they tear open ants or termite burrows with their powerful claws. Some of the animals also consume seeds and distribute them with their excrement in the landscape, making them an important ecological factor in their respective habitats . Since intact chitin shells were often found on digestive residues of the spherical armadillos, they do not seem to chew their food.

Reproduction

After a gestation period of around 120 days , a single young animal is usually born between October and January and weighs around 70 to 100 g. They are weaned after around two to three months and reach sexual maturity at nine to twelve months of age. Life expectancy is twelve to 15 years, in captivity they can be up to 30 years.

Systematics

Internal systematics of the armadillos according to Gibb et al. 2015
  Dasypoda  
  Dasypodidae  

 Dasypus


  Chlamyphoridae  
  Euphractinae  

 Euphractus


   

 Chaetophractus


   

 Zaedyus




   
  Chlamyphorinae  

 Chlamyphorus


   

 Calyptophractus



  Tolypeutinae  

 Priodontes


   
  Tolypeutes  

 Tolypeutes tricinctus


   

 Tolypeutes matacus



   

 Cabassous 







Template: Klade / Maintenance / Style

The spherical armadillos ( Tolypeutes ) are a genus within the group of the armadillos (Dasypoda) and the order of the armored collateral animals (Cingulata). Together with the bare- tailed armadillos ( Cabassous ) and the giant armadillo ( Priodontes ), they form the subfamily of the Tolypeutinae , which is part of the Chlamyphoridae family . The Chlamyphorinae are considered to be the closest related group . These in turn include the girdle gullet ( Chlamyphorus truncatus ) and the Burmeister girdle gullet ( Calyptophractus retusus ), further outside are the Euphractinae with, among other things, the six-banded armadillo ( Euphractus sexcinctus ) and the bristle armadillos ( Chaetophractus ). Molecular genetic studies have shown that the Chlamyphorinae and the Tolypeutinae separated in the Oligocene 33 million years ago and the latter diversified more than 20 million years ago in the Lower Miocene . Within the Tolypeutinae, Cabassous and Priodontes are seen from an anatomical point of view as much more closely related and form the tribe of the Priodontini . Tolypeutes , on the other hand, belongs to the Tolypeutini tribe due to its unique armor . In addition, the fossil genus Kuntinaru from the Oligocene is incorporated into the Tolypeutinae.

Two species living today are assigned to the genus Tolypeutes :

A distinction is also made as fossil species:

Representatives of the genus of the spherical armadillos were first known in Europe in 1605 , when the Dutch scholar Clusius described and illustrated a specimen. It was the northern spherical armadillo, but the southern one was discovered almost at the same time. The generic name Tolypeutes originates from Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger in 1811. In the 19th century , the German used to differentiate between the southern spherical and northern "rolling armadillo".

Tribal history

The armored joint animals represent the oldest known representatives of the joint animals (Xenarthra) and are already proven from the paleogene of today's Brazil . The oldest records of the Tolypeutinae come from the Oligocene around 26 million years ago and were discovered in the Salla Beds in Bolivia , an extremely rich fossil deposit. However, remains of spherical armadillos only reach back to the Pliocene , they are generally a rather rare element of fauna. These are the remains of the fossil species Tolypeutes pampaeus , which is found predominantly in the pampas region of today's Argentina and which occurred until the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene around 700,000 years ago. However, some researchers see similarities in this species with the southern spherical armadillo. Reliable remains of the recent species are relatively rare and mostly belong to the Holocene , for example from the archaeological site of Alfar in the Argentine province of Buenos Aires , which is dated to the period from about 6000 to 5000 BP .

threat

Southern Globe Armadillo at the Cincinnati Zoo

Thanks to their effective defense method, spherical armadillos have few natural enemies other than humans. People hunt these animals primarily for their meat, which is considered tasty. Due to their ability to curl up in danger, they are well protected against predators, but can be easily picked up and taken by humans. In addition, their living space is becoming increasingly restricted. The northern spherical armadillo is considered endangered, the southern one is potentially endangered.

Others

The mascot of the football World Cup in Brazil in 2014 was a spherical armadillo, more precisely the northern spherical armadillo, which occurs in Brazil, and was named "Fuleco".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Mariella Superina: Biology and keeping of armadillos (Dasypodidae). University of Zurich, 2000, pp. 1–248
  2. ↑ a b c d e Paul Smith: The Xenarthra famalies Myrmecophagidae and Dasypodidae. Fauna Paraguay Handbook of the Mammals of Paraguay 2012, pp. 1-35
  3. ↑ Anderson Feijó, Guilherme ST Garbino, Bruno ATP Campos, Patrício A. Rocha, Stephen F. Ferrari and Alfredo Langguth: Distribution of Tolypeutes Illiger, 1811 (Xenarthra: Cingulata) with Comments on Its Biogeography and Conservation. Zoological Science 32: 2015, pp. 77-87
  4. ↑ Nina Attias, Flávia R. Miranda, Liana MM Sena, Walfrido M. Tomas and Guilherme M. Mourão: Yes, they can! Three-banded armadillos Tolypeutes sp. (Cingulata: Dasypodidae) dig their own burrows. Zoologia 33 (4), 2016, p. E20160035 doi: 10.1590 / S1984-4689zool-20160035
  5. ↑ Mariella Superina and Loughry WJ: Life on the Half Shell: Consequences of a carapace in the Evolution of Armadillos (Xenarthra: Cingulata). Journal of Mammal Evolution 19, 2012, pp. 217-224
  6. ↑ a b Gillian C. Gibb, Fabien L. Condamine, Melanie Kuch, Jacob Enk, Nadia Moraes-Barros, Mariella Superina, Hendrik N. Poinar and Frédéric Delsuc: Shotgun Mitogenomics Provides a Reference Phylogenetic Framework and Timescale for Living Xenarthrans. Molecular Biology and Evolution 33 (3), 2015, pp. 621-642
  7. ↑ Maren Möller-Krull, Frédéric Delsuc, Gennady Churakov, Claudia Marker, Mariella Superina, Jürgen Brosius, Emmanuel JP Douzery and Jürgen Schmitz: Retroposed Elements and Their Flanking Regions Resolve the Evolutionary History of Xenarthran Mammals (Armadillos, Anteaters and Sloths). Molecular Biology and Evolution 24, 2007, pp. 2573-2582.
  8. ↑ Frederic Delsuc, Mariella Superina, Marie-Ka Tilak, Emmanuel JP Douzery and Alexandre Hassanin: Molecular phylogenetics unveils the ancient evolutionary origins of the enigmatic fairy armadillos. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 62, 2012, 673-680
  9. ↑ a b Guillaume Billet, Lionel Hautier, Christian de Muizon and Xavier Valentin: Oldest cingulate skulls provide congruence between morphological and molecular scenarios of armadillo evolution. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 278, 2011, pp. 2791-2797
  10. ^ A b Agustín Manuel Abba and Mariella Superina: The 2009/2010 Armadillo Red List Assessment. Edentata 11 (2), 2010, pp. 96-114
  11. ↑ Leopold Joseph Fitzinger: The natural family of the belt animals (Dasypodes). Meeting reports of the methematic and natural science class of the Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Department 1 64, 1871, pp. 209–276 and 329–390
  12. ^ Paulina E. Nabel, Alberto Cione and Eduardo P. Tonni: Environmental changes in the Pampean area of ​​Argentina at the Matuyama – Brunhes (C1r – C1n) Chrons boundary. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 162, 2000, pp. 403-412
  13. ↑ Esteban Soibelzon, Ángel Ramón Miño-Boilini, Alfredo Eduardo Zurita and Cecilia Mariana Krmpotic: Los Xenarthra (Mammalia) del Ensenadense (Pleistoceno inferior a medio) de la Región Pampeana (Argentina). Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Geológicas 27 (3), 2010, pp. 449-469
  14. ↑ Mariano Bonomo, Diego Catriel Leon, Margarita Osterrieth, Pamela Steffan and Natalia Borrelli: Paleoenvironmental studies of Alfar archaeological site (mid-Holocene; Southeastern Pampas of Argentina): Silicophytoliths, gastropods and archaeofauna. Quaternary International 287, 2013, pp. 34-46
  15. ↑ FIFA

Web links

Commons : Tolypeutes  - collection of images, videos and audio files