Hairy long-nosed armadillo
Fur Armadillo by Hermann Burmeister, 1862
The fur armadillo ( Dasypus pilosus ) is a species of long-nosed armadillos and is the only representative of this genus has a dense, the carapace bedeckendes coat of bristle-like hairs. It is endemic in Peru, where it occupied a small area of distribution in the cloud forests of the Andes. Over the life of the belt species, little is known. Their population is considered endangered.
Features
The fur armadillo has a head-body length of about 40 to 44 cm, the tail is again approximately 27 cm long, reaching two-thirds of the body length. It therefore represents a medium-sized representative of the long-nosed armadillos dar. The head is much larger than in the related species and to about 11 cm long. It has an egg-shaped in side view shape with a long drawn-out and roll-shaped snout. The eyes are small, the ears are very large and spoon- wide and close together. The front is covered by a head shield of irregular, polygonal bone plate and, like the rest of the head largely hairless. The hull has a rather low and stretched roll shape. The typical body armor has a stronger shoulder and pelvic part, between which there are ten to twelve, but often eleven movable bands. Overall, the armor consists of several rows of small bone plates, the shoulder armor is 18, with those of the fixed tank have a more rounded shape of the moving contrast carapace is triangular, but with small upstream and turn roundish labels. Dyed the tank is yellowish-white. The entire tank covered a dense, reddish to yellow-brown colored fur dress, so that it is visible only in the front area. A significant hair is otherwise in long nose armadillos not before and is also more pronounced than in the bristle armadillos. The length of the hair is about 5 cm. The belly, which is covered by hexagonal bone plates, and the fronts of the legs, have a less dense coat. The long, hairless tail is in turn surrounded by wirtelförmigen bone plates. The limbs are short and end in the front four, back in five rays. All toes have claws shaped like a cone, only the middle of the front feet are long and narrow.
Distribution and habitat
The distribution area of the fur armadillo in the Andes in the west and north of Peru, where it occurs at elevations of 500 to 3000 m above sea level. The size of the area is very limited and is given as 53,000 square kilometers, with a total of only five sites from different departments of the country are known, where it has been observed in recent years. Earlier assumptions about a far-reaching southward spread proved to be false, they were mainly based on erroneous maps of the 1980s. How big was the distribution area in historical time is unknown, reports from the 18th and 19th centuries, according to which the animal was possibly present in Chile and Ecuador. Information on the size of the population are not available. The preferred habitat are the Yungas forests of the Andean slopes, subtropical to tropical mountain forests and cloud forests. Here you will find the fur armadillo in areas with dense ground vegetation and limestone -rich ground.
Way of life
Since the fur armadillo is difficult to observe because of the rare and limited occurrence, it is one of the animals with unknown life.
System
Dasypodinae
Tolypeutes
Priodontes
Chlamyphorinae
Zaedyus
Chaetophractus
Euphractus
The fur Armadillo is one kind of the long-nosed armadillos ( Dasypus ), which include six other species. In turn, the long-nosed armadillos constitute a part of the family of armadillos ( Dasypodidae ). The genus Dasypus forms its own subfamily, the Dasypodinae. Also in the Dasypodinae several extinct genera are included. These include Stegotherium, which has been shown from the Miocene and includes several species, and Propraopus from the Pleistocene of which are also known a number of ways. The Dasypodinae separated according to molecular genetic studies already in the Upper Eocene, around 37 million years ago from the line of other armadillos from. The closest related group are the Tolypeutinae to which the ball armadillos ( Tolypeutes ), the naked-tailed armadillo ( Cabassous ) and the giant armadillo ( Priodontes ) are expected.
The first description was in 1856 by Leopold Fitzinger as Cryptophractus pilosus, based on the disclosure made a museum specimen from Vienna. The animal had been but obviously already described in 1782 by Juan Ignacio Molina, in his treatise on the natural history of Chile, as Dasypus octocinctus, but he gave the number of freely moving straps on wrong and the name is no longer recognized today. Only a few years after Fitzinger, 1862, Hermann Burmeister described the belt species again and renamed it Praopus hirsutus, which today is synonymous with Dasypus pilosus. In the same publication, he noted that the closest relative of his opinion, the Nine-banded Armadillo ( Dasypus novemcinctus ) is, so he filed the fur armadillo in the vicinity of the long-nosed armadillos. Burmeister's description was based on two female specimens that he during his stay in 1860 vorfand South America in the National Museum in Lima and who came from Guayaquil in Ecuador, where the animal no longer exists today. The embossed name of Fitzinger Cryptophractus today announced the addition of the subgenus name armadillo fur is, however, according to some researchers, it should be performed again as a scientific genus name.
Threat and protection
The fur armadillo is hunted locally, but there is no information about the intensity and the degree of the resulting threat to the Artbestand. Furthermore, the destruction of the rain forests and the consequent disappearance of natural habitats are dangerous for the animal. The IUCN classifies the species as a belt "at risk" ( vulnerable ). Most significant occurrences of fur armadillo is the one from the Río Abiseo National Park in Peru.