Armadillos are crossing borders, roads — or trying to

Clay will return tomorrow. Here’s a favorite column from May 26, 2011:

Today’s question: Are there armadillos in Arizona? I don’t think so, but there may be some around here sooner or later. There might be a few armadillos down south along the border, but by and large they are not well-established in Arizona.

There do seem to be a lot of them in places like Texas, Louisiana and Florida.

Did you know that before the middle of the 19th century armadillos weren’t at all common in the United States? They have been slowly expanding their territory from Mexico to the north and west for centuries.

And people who know about such things say they may move into New Mexico and Arizona and could eventually wind up in the upper Midwest.

People who study on such matters point to the Virginia opossum, which set out from Mexico and Central America centuries ago and eventually became common over large parts of the United States.

Do you know why armadillos are so susceptible to being turned into roadkill? It’s not just because they actually get directly hit by vehicles while crossing the road.An armadillo’s response to fear or alarm is to jump up in the air. Why this is so, I don’t know. It doesn’t sound like a very good plan to me.

But it means even if a vehicle passes over an armadillo without actually hitting it, the creature is probably going to brain itself on the underside of the vehicle anyway.