Armadillos Make Historic Debut in Ohio

Ohio just logged a new arrival, and it's wearing armor. Researchers have confirmed the state's first documented wild armadillo, found dead along a road near Oxford on Sept. 6, likely killed by a vehicle. The male armadillo is part of a steady northward creep that began in Texas in the late 1800s and has since seen the animals appear in new states every decade or so, reaching southern Illinois in 2017, the New York Times reports.

Armadillos have been found as roadkill in Ohio twice before, but only on interstate ramps, leading researchers to believe they hitched a ride by hiding in vehicles, as armadillos have been known to do, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports. This one, however, almost certainly walked in from Kentucky or Indiana. Tereza Jezkova, an associate professor of biology at Oxford's Miami University, says it's not clear how far north the creatures will spread. "They need to stop sometime, but so far, they keep going," she tells the Times. "We don't know how they do that and what's changed that suddenly they can withstand harsh winters." She says she had been hoping they would make it to the state "simply because I like armadillos."