mikao's world

"Excuse me, Senor, I'd like to pass"

My younger sister is in Florida for 6 months working with endangered red cockaded woodpeckers. She sent me the following email with the above subject line:

"The other day I was out by myself on the range and I came across this armadillo. Actually, we come across armadillos fairly frequently, and they either notice the truck and zip on out of there, or remain oblivious and calmly go on with their business, which is usually snuffling along slowly, pausing to dig here and there. Anyway, this armadillo was of the latter variety, and he happened to be in the very middle of the road. I slowly drove up and stopped but he plainly had no plans to get out of my way. So rather than honking at him I decided to open the door. No response. Walked to about 2 feet away from him. I could have reached out and touched him (I had forgotten my camera at home that day.) No response. Bent down and said, "Hey, uh, Mr. 'Dillo, I..." Finally he looked up. "Huh?" he said, his beady little eyes finally seeing that there was something beside him (they must not have very good hearing, either.) "Ai caramba!" Then he scurried off.

Anyway, I think that the armadillos are one of my favourite things about Florida, even if the biologist part of me knows they are introduced exotics and therefore just as bad as dandelions (which I've noticed don't seem to be around here) and starlings."