Just As We Reported In 2008, Armadillos Invading Our Area

The Lincoln Journal Star is reporting that an armadillo found dead on Monday on a Butler County road may be a "pioneer" that wandered into central Nebraska along the Platte River Valley.  "The state of Nebraska is the northernmost range of the nine-banded armadillos," Professor Patricia Freeman, head of the zoology laboratory at UNL, wrote in an email. The mild winter and an extremely warm March may have something to do with the armadillo in question's survival, she said.

But back in the summer of 2008, the Dorchester Times received an e-mail from a reader who asked us to look into an armadillo spotting in the Dorchester area. Frankly, we didn't take the request seriously at the time. However, by early October 2008, the AP reported that another armadillo had shown up in Nebraska -- this time as roadkill in Lincoln.

The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission says the leathery mammals have been spotted across the state for about a decade, but are still rare. Armadillos are common in the South, where they're a nuisance because of burrowing. The animals don't hibernate, so their survival depends on the severity of winter.