Armadillos are common in the southern United States, thanks in part to the warmer weather that attracts them, but recently these creatures have started making a home in the Midwest — and during the colder parts of the year, too.
Historically, nine-banded armadillos have thrived in the Southwest, with Texas hosting the largest population in the country, according to 101 Highland Lakes. But thousands of miles further north, the armadillo is more commonly seen.
Armadillos have traveled through rivers and streams to the Midwest in recent years, and thousands of them are spotted year-round as far north as Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois.
Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images
“We’re surprised because we didn’t expect to find them so far north in the winter,” Dr. Agustin Jiménez, an associate professor of biological sciences at Southern Illinois University, to AccuWeather’s Emmy Victor.
An Illinois couple sent a video to AccuWeather of an armadillo in their backyard over the winter, and just two weeks later, another armadillo was sighted in Illinois. The exact reason these animals migrate north is unclear, but several studies have pointed to climate change and warming winters.
“Normally the winters we would expect for this area, the temperatures, would have taken care of them. They wouldn’t survive. But they survive,” Jiménez said.
Karen Schauwecker
A study published in the Wiley Journal of Biogeography said armadillos could one day live as far north as Pennsylvania because of warmer winters.
“With warmer temperatures further north, armadillos could potentially be found in areas that were totally unexpected 20 years ago,” Colleen McDonough, an ecologist and armadillo expert at Valdosta State University in Georgia, told National Geographic.
Jiménez’s students recently placed a tracker on armadillos found in southern parts of Illinois to track their movement to try to learn more about why they migrate north. The results showed that the armadillos remain local and even more can be seen in southern Illinois.
Because the southern part of Illinois is experiencing a milder winter than other parts of the state, Jiménez said he doesn’t expect them to inhabit areas much further north.
“It could be very difficult for them to reach the larvae, the insects they feed on. Right now, the winters and soil conditions in southern Illinois make it easier for them to access some of these insects, said Jimenez.
In February 2022, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources asked the public to report any sightings in the state. Within just 24 hours, more than 400 reports were given — mostly from the southern part of the state, according to the Chicago Tribune.
But armadillos have been observed in central and even northern Illinois. In the summer of 2021, an armadillo was found dead behind a Kia dealership in Springfield, central Illinois. In the northern part of the state, two reports came in in Cook County, where Chicago is located. Two credible reports of armadillos in the past 30 years have come from this province.
Armadillos have also been spotted outside the Midwest, including Virginia and North Carolina, where officials are asking the public to report any sightings in those states. By reporting sightings, it helps officials track and understand the animals’ new expanded territories.
Over the past century, armadillos have steadily moved further north. These animals originally crossed the Rio Grande River in the 1850s and then the Mississippi in the 1930s. By the 1990s, Armadillos had begun to appear in Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia, according to National Geographic.
Reporting by Emmy Victor.
Produced in collaboration with AccuWeather.com.
This story was provided to Newsweek by Zenger News.