There's an Armadillo in Alabama!

[Burgman]

Tons of them. Coyotes as well. They both seem to be the new road kill so people are eating well. I was getting tired of possum.

Outside of the backhanded dig of the folks who like to stereotype us down here, it does seem that migratory habits of many animals in NA seem to be changing. Armadillos and Coyotes were never seen here before the 90's.

It has to do with one of two things. Psilocybin use or a changing environmental system due to widespred temperature changes across the nation. Dare I say "Climate change" or "Global warming?" Or maybe just "we may be fucked and all hail the cockroach, the new global overlord!"

[comipinko]

1. Bon Appetit

[leftyohiolib]

2. sounds like the start of a joke

[Xipe Totec]

3. Two things: First, they are delicious...

No, they do not taste like chicken, I have tasted armadillo and they taste like very lean pork.

Second, I don't recommend it to anyone because armadillos are carriers of Hansen's disease, otherwise known as leprosy.

For this reason, even touching them is not advisable.

[RebelOne]

4. We have tons of coyotes and possums here in Georgia. Seen possums in my back yard.

Atlanta had to shut down one of its parks because of coyotes. I am a vegetarian, so I am not about to try to eat the possums.

[Burgman]

5. They wouldn't hesitate to eat you.

[MineralMan]

10. We have coyotes and possums here in Minnesota, too.

The opossums like to huddle up in basement window wells during the winter. One lived in one of my window wells last year. I wonder if it'll be back.

[BOHICA12]

6. Neither - just taking their time populating

We did some stupid stuff with coyotes - we killed off en mass the stupid/incautious - thus creating a better gene pool. Railroad freight brought them this way and the change in hunting patterns took pressure off all in the forest ecosystem. They cross with dogs and eat our cats and thrive because not every backdoor has a .22 next to it and these are the real smart ones.

Armadillos - given enough time the invasive species will be everywhere - careful they can carry leprosy. So make sure to wear gloves when preparing possum-on-the-halfshell.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

7. Well, having grown up in Lower Alabama

I can recall seeing armadillo quite frequently...in the 70's. And coyotes have been there forever...

sP

[pinboy3niner]

8. Not ringin' a bell. Can you hum a few bars?

[Burgman]

9. You'd have to sing it to the tune of "The Devil Came Down to Georgia."

Apologies to the R musician, but I know better. He's a dope smoking partier with very few brain cells left to rub together.

The armadillo came to Bama
Lookin' for a soul to steal...

[pinboy3niner]

11. Or to 'Still in Saigon'...

There's an armadillo
Oh, an armadillo
Yeah, an armadillo
In Ala-baaaa-aaaa-ma

Perfect fit!

[Artie Bucco]

12. Coyotes have been pushing east for a while now.

They were able to take advantage of human infrastructure, mainly bridges to travel east. Also in the number of large predators to compete with in the Eastern States is much less than those in the Western States.

[fishwax]

13. Armadillos have been in Alabama since the 20s and 30s, when there were zoo and circus escapes in Fl.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-0503180231mar18,0,174046.story

About a hundred years after it was recorded in Texas, the armadillo was inhabiting all of Louisiana, where they are known as "possums on the half shell," and the southern sections of Oklahoma and Arkansas. Less than two decades later--helped in part by a pair that escaped from a private zoo in Brevard County, Fla., in 1922 and another escape that reportedly occurred in 1936 when a circus truck overturned near Titusville, Fla.--two waves of armadillos met in Alabama and continued to move.

By the 1970s, armadillos were digging up and munching on beetles, termites and caterpillars and nibbling on carrion in Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Colorado, Kansas and Tennessee. The mammals' territory expanded in those states and moved into southern South Carolina by 1995, when some had been spotted as far north as Nebraska.