“The nine-banded armadillo is proliferating and expanding its range across the Eastern US. According to a recently published analysis of armadillo sightings, the species, first recorded in the US in 1849, has now colonized 17 states and has been spotted as far north as Nebraska, Michigan, and Virginia,” reports The Doomslayer. Over the last dozen years, armadillos have come to inhabit the entirety of Missouri, South Carolina, and Georgia, despite being entirely absent from those states in most of the 20th century.
MDPI explains:
The nine-banded armadillo was first recorded in the United States in Texas in 1849 and has been expanding its range northward and eastward since then. With the widespread adoption of participatory science as well as the proliferation of nationwide wildlife game camera studies, occurrence data of armadillos can be compiled more rapidly and thoroughly than at any time in the past. Here, we use disparate data sources to update the current geographic distribution of the armadillo in the United States and use occurrence data from the leading edge of its range expansion to create a species distribution model to understand their relationship with landscape and bioclimatic factors.
Since the last report on the geographic distribution of the armadillo in 2014, armadillos have expanded to cover the entirety of Missouri and established in southern Iowa, expanded modestly within Kansas and Illinois, expanded northward and eastward in Indiana, expanded eastward in both Kentucky and Tennessee, established throughout the entirety of South Carolina and Georgia and established in the western third of North Carolina. Our species distribution model indicates there is substantial opportunity for the species to expand its geographic range, particularly in the Eastern United States.
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