When my brother was alive we'd drive across MO to Joplin to visit. In the summer you could hardly go five miles without seeing a 'dillo dead beside the road. Almost never in the road. Bro said it was because they jumped straight up in front of appoaching cars or trucks and got launched off to the side on impact. Missouri wives tale, I don't know.
Not a tale. Armadillos sometimes will jump in response to a threat or being startled. If that is when a car is passing overhead, then they may jump into the underside of a car. Otherwise, a lot get killed just like other small critters, by getting hit by the tires.
Now, that video wasn't impressive. I used to have a poster of an armadillo high jumping. It was a cool photo. They can actually jump 4-6 feet, vertically when scared.
https://www.forestwildlife.org/armadillo/
If there was ever a harmless critter created by the Good Lord,,,
The armadillo is it.
I do understand they mess up lawns with their tunnels,,,
I mean as I type I have two of the tunnels in my front yard.
But why do people consider them to be "evil"?
I actually like armadillos. I think they are a very cool animal from an evolutionary perspective, but I also know that they are not a truly harmless animal (few are). Yes, they will mess up a lawn, but this isn't a decor issue. They will mess up pastures, cause issues for livestock. They will cause problems (weakening of) with small dams. They can literally cause structure problems for homes and small buildings by burrowing under (destabilizing) piers. They can ruin gardens. They are a carrier of lepsrosy, which we gave them. No, the threat is not from their teeth and they won't eat you or your pets (unless your pets are bugs), but that doesn't make them harmless. Their biggest problem for us is that they are simply tenacious diggers and if you want/need/expect the ground to remain solid and stable, then you don't want armadillos.
Personally, they get a free ride on the lands that I own at this point as do many other non-harmless animals that I enjoy having as nature.
As for the evil moniker, various animals get the tough or evil moniker because people shoot them and the animal survives the onslaught, usually because the shooter is doing a really poor job with the tool that the shooter has, along with failing to understand biology. People seem to believe that if they shoot an animal and it does not die immediately, that it has some sort of super power because the blast from their pistol will cause a full grown man to fly through the air on TV or some such nonsense. Then, they fail to understand that once the adrenaline dumps, the animal (including people) is apt to be able to absorb a lot of damage until it succumbs, even though it was likely mortally wounded by the first shot that simply didn't shut down the CNS. So you got guys putting random shots into it, sometimes through the same holes (not doing new damage) and thinking the critter is undaunted and virtually unharmed. If they would have put one shot into it and watched it for a minute or so, it would likely be dead (because, surely the shooter isn't incompetent with a firearm) without the need for all of the additional shooting a proclamations of evil.
I have seen the same claims for opossums, raccoons, and hogs. None of these animals are special.
This thread talks about tough ground hogs and opossums...
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...heap-with-rimfire.907102/page-2#post-12349052
More tough, zombie-like opossums.
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/opossum-fearlessness.842685/
Bullet proof armadillo - NOT
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...ff-armadillos-shell-breaking-mans-jaw.825049/
"Rodents, like opossums and armadillos, are tougher than you think" - which is really interesting given that neither opossums or armadillos are rodents.
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...m-one-shot-kill-what-works.15802/#post-196648