Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Cingulata > Dasypodidae > Priodontes > Priodontes maximus

Priodontes maximus (Giant Armadillo)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

The giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus), colloquially tatou, ocarro, tatu-canastra or tatú carreta, is the largest living species of armadillo (although their extinct relatives, the glyptodonts, were much larger). It lives in South America, ranging throughout as far south as northern Argentina. This species is considered vulnerable to extinction. The giant armadillo prefers termites and some ants as prey, and often consumes the entire population of a termite mound. It also has been known to prey upon worms, larvae and larger creatures, such as spiders and snakes, and plants.
View Wikipedia Record: Priodontes maximus

Endangered Species

Status: Vulnerable
View IUCN Record: Priodontes maximus

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
13
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
61
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 26.44
EDGE Score: 4.7
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  72.753 lbs (33.00 kg)
Birth Weight [1]  62 grams
Diet [2]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Carnivore (Vertebrates)
Diet - Invertibrates [2]  90 %
Diet - Vertibrates [2]  10 %
Forages - Ground [2]  100 %
Female Maturity [1]  10 months 20 days
Male Maturity [1]  10 months 20 days
Gestation [1]  4 months 2 days
Litter Size [1]  2
Maximum Longevity [1]  15 years
Nocturnal [3]  Yes
Snout to Vent Length [4]  37 inches (94 cm)
Weaning [1]  35 days

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Atlantic Forest Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay No
Cerrado Brazil No
Tropical Andes Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela No

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Aspidodera fasciata <Unverified Name>[5]

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 3Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 4Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 5Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0