Description
Armadillos are one of the oldest groups of mammals and have a quirky appearance, with a tough shell composed of bony plates in the dermis covered by horny scales. The giant armadillo is the largest living species of this group, and has 11 to 13 hinged bands protecting the body, and a further three or four on the neck. Its body is dark brown in colour, with a lighter, yellowish band running along the sides, and a pale, yellow-white head. These armadillos have around 80 to 100 teeth, which is more than any other mammal. They also possess extremely long front claws, including a sickle-shaped third claw. The giant armadillos typically weigh around 28–32 kg (62–71 lb) when fully grown, however a 54 kg (120 lb) specimen has been weighed in the wild and captive specimens have been weighed up to 80 kg (180 lb). The typical length of the species from 75–100 cm (30–39 in), with the tail adding another 50 cm (20 in).
Read more about this topic: Giant Armadillo
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“I was here first introduced to Joe.... He was a good-looking Indian, twenty-four years old, apparently of unmixed blood, short and stout, with a broad face and reddish complexion, and eyes, methinks, narrower and more turned up at the outer corners than ours, answering to the description of his race. Besides his underclothing, he wore a red flannel shirt, woolen pants, and a black Kossuth hat, the ordinary dress of the lumberman, and, to a considerable extent, of the Penobscot Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built. Nor let us look down on the standpoint of the theory as make-believe; for we can never do better than occupy the standpoint of some theory or other, the best we can muster at the time.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)