TREMARCTOS

Northern Naked-tailed Armadillo (Cabassous centralis), La Selva Biological Station

From my trip report: After seeing the Silky Anteater, I walked the CCL trail. About 350 meters
along the trail, I happened upon an armadillo noisily digging out a Bullet Ant nest. I watched from a safe distance, cautious to avoid the hordes of angry Bullet Ants. At first, I assumed that this was the “standard” Nine-banded Armadillo, which is quite common in the area. After about ten minutes, it
left the nest and I was surprised to see that it was the “other” armadillo the Northern Naked-tailed Armadillo! I never expected to see a species in this genus (its Southern relative spends 99.75% of the time underground according to one study). I jumped up, and (of course) broke my
flash. I followed it for maybe 50 meters in the forest before it started digging again. This time, it wasn’t digging for food but instead for shelter. I walked up to the burrow after it disappeared beneath the ground to see that it had
sealed the burrow behind itself, but I could still feel the armadillo moving
underground. Due to my early caution and later lack of
flash, none of my photos turned out great. I did get one diagnostic shot. Afterwards, I went back to the bullet ant nest to examine the damage. The Armadillo had dug about five holes in the nest, presumably searching for brood chambers
filled with nutritious larvae. The ants seemed disoriented, but were not aggressive. As I was taking photos of the nest, I heard a large mammal moving quickly through the forest. I looked up to see a Baird’s Tapir run across the trail about four meters from me. It stopped suddenly and stared at me for a minute before noisily running away.