You Definitely Shouldn't Touch Armadillos

Welcome back to Bizarre Beasts: Season Zero, where we are remastering episodes of Bizarre Beasts that were originally created for Vlogbrothers. This episode, nine-banded armadillos, the little land critter that can walk underwater.

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[strawbearie]

always having genetically identical quadruplets is wild

[BackYardScience]

Being the only one in the lab for the entire shift sucks! I did it for years and hated it. We worked 12 hour shifts and i was the night shift guy. They had 3 people in the lab on day shift and just me in night shift and they expected me to get the same amount of work done as 3 whole people in the same amount of time! Needless to say, i quit after they started complaining that i couldn't keep up with them and started my own science business and 5 years on I'm happier than I've ever been with my work.

[Lizard_Ri]

Roll is such a cute name for a bunch of armadillos!!

[NewMessage]

Arming the Dillos was a mistake. They've developed full body armor now, and more is coming... * narrows eyes * ... coming for US!

[jmodified]

When armadillos are digging through leaves looking for food, they are so absorbed in their work that you can walk right up to them without them noticing - just like my nephew when he's playing video games.

[StarsUponThars]

“I managed the lab by myself.”
Uh oh…

[prjndigo]

I actually had a generational nest of armadillo under my house over 9 years in Lakeland FL where every year they would come back over from the wilds to be safe with their babies. Then we had coyotes and its hard to find them but I'm sure that if another comes here I'll have another decade of armadillos playing around the yard.

[woodneel]

3:02 "Credit: Someone" Man, I remember wishing in high school I could just put THAT as my works cited page... and I still do wish that! 😂

[stacythomas]

When I used to live in the boonies in Florida I had an enormous back yard that bordered a wild area. The house had a large enclosed back porch where someone had cut a section out of the bottom of the door, probably for a dog. An armadillo I had been spotting regularly in my yard decided one day that it was just going to live in my back porch. Since it wasn't making a mess inside the porch I didn't make any effort to stop it. I put out a water bowl and ocasionally some dog food as a treat, I gave it a ball to play with and threw down a small plastic kiddie pool for it over by where there were a bunch of anthills to encourage it to hang out and play/dig/eat there. Made an interesting and friendly free roaming wild "pet" that would sometimes follow me around curiously like a dog if I was out and about in the yard. I limited my interaction with him to observation and providing items, I did not pet him as if he were a dog. He was fun to watch.

EDIT- YES I was warned they can transmit leprosy! I asked my vet about it and was told it wasn't likely an issue as long as I didn't EAT the dillo, and was advised not to handle it directly and to wear gloves if cleaning his pool etc. Apparently the bacteria doesn't survive well or long outside a host and requires direct transmission. I hosed down the concrete floors of the porch often, never had any issue.

[Fruityab]

I volunteer at a wild animal sanctuary and we have an armadillo resident. I never have to touch him when I clean his enclosure, but I couldn’t anyway, because he never stops with the zoomies.

[Red_Proton]

A full 8-hour shift completely alone and isolated… where do I sign up? It sounds like heaven.

[duckdodgers]

As much as I love the 9 banded ones you should totally do a video on the fairy armadillo or the 3 banded ones, or really any of the other ones because armadillos are AWESOME!

[coldrose]

Plugging the Drawfee episode where Hank has them draw animals he wishes were real, and makes Karina draw a vaping armadillo

[RylanBones]

Thank goodness you credited someone for that video of the adorable armadillo bathing in its water dish

[Kobolds_in_a_trenchcoat]

Armadillos are very cute. Good advice to not touch them if you can avoid it but yeah, the leprosy concern is real but generally overstated. We have medicine now. Wear gloves, wash your hands, but you should be fine and if you aren't, just see a doctor, they can get you fine again.

[Fish-Addict]

Leprosy, oh leprosy, you left me half the man I used to be

[IrisGlowingBlue]

"Armadillo All The Time" would be a good name for a documentary about armadillos :joy:

[Bacteriophagebs]

When I was a kid, my dad had a "theory" about why you saw so many armadillos on the side of the road that weren't crushed. He thought that since they were almost always on the painted lines, they were pausing on the lines because of traffic, then overheating because the heat reflecting off the white paint couldn't escape their shells. Since armadillos almost always bled from their noses, he further theorized that the heat was so great that their organs ruptured.
But as Hank said, they just tend to jump when startled, which means they get hit while in the air and land on the side of the road with fatal internal bleeding.

[tessat]

I remember seeing armadillos at Kennedy Space Center in Titusville Florida. Massive coach buses were rolling up to take us out to another part of the base and little armadillos were running frantically to get out of the path of the buses. We were so relieved when the armadillos made it safely to the other side of the road! Cape Canaveral is also a nature preserve and there are so many interesting birds, reptiles and mammals to be seen there in addition to all the fascinating space stuff. If you go to see it, allow a full day to see everything.

[DoubleplusUngoodthinkful]

I took an injured armadillo to the vet and was extremely cautious not to touch it. They laughed at me and said it was so much hype and hysteria.