Mr. W. H. Hudson has described the way in which this Armadillo will kill a snake by holding it down and literally sawing the reptile in half by help of the sharp and serrated edges of the carapace. Dasypus has a very short tail, which is shielded by distinct rings near the base.
Tatusia novemcincta is a species with nine movable bands. The genus has four teats; the ears are near together. There are no caeca and no azygos lobe to the lung. A species apparently belonging to this genus, but described under the generic names of Cryptophractus and Praopus, is remarkable for the thick covering of hair, not entirely wanting but usually thin in other Armadillos. In this particular species the coat of hair is so thick as to conceal the underlying plates of the carapace. The individual hairs are stiff, and one inch and a half in length.[1]
The genus Xenurus contains several species, the best known of which is inaptly named X. unicinctus. As a matter of fact the characteristic feature of the genus is the existence of twelve or thirteen movable plates between the two ends of the body. X. unicinctus has twelve dorsal and three lumbar vertebrae. This Armadillo, known by the vernacular name of the Cabassou, has one of the most modified hands that are found in the family. The first two digits are slender and elongated; but are quite normal in the number of their phalanges. In the remaining three digits the metacarpal is short and broad, while the proximal phalanx is either suppressed altogether or fused with the metacarpal, the middle phalanx is present but short, while the third phalanx is very large indeed. As in Dasypus, but not as in Tatusia, which is in so many other respects divergent from these genera, the lungs have an azygos lobe. As a small point of difference, tending to show an alliance between the genera Xenurus and Dasypus and their difference from Tatusia, is the deeply-imbedded gall-bladder; this sac is not nearly so deeply plunged into the hepatic tissue in Tatusia. Xenurus has no caecal dilatations. The brain "is intermediate in its form and surface markings between Dasypus and Tolypeutes." The small intestine is nearly eighteen times the length of the large. But these intestinal measurements are not of much avail in this group as marks of affinity, since in three species of Dasypus Garrod gives the following widely-divergent lengths:—D. villosus, 11.5 feet and 1.25; D. minutus
- ↑ Flower, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1886, p. 419.
