Giant Armadillo!!! This takes some explaining... This animal is one of the rarest sights in South America. People live their entire lives searching for wildlife and never see one of these. Giant Armadillo are almost entirely nocturnal, very rare in numbers, shy and mostly underground. The only reason I have these pictures is I went out with biologists who track and research and capture them.

These biologists capture them whenever they can then collect DNA, weight and size data. They then fit a GPS unit to the animal to collect behavioral information. They also clean parasites off and give the animal vitamins, etc. Finally, it is released back into it's den which is what I photographed above.


Look at the size of that animal! It really looks like a dinosaur. Look at it's feet and claws. Those giant claws might be used for defense against predators but mostly they are just for digging. This one is sleeping while they checked her out. Before she woke up, they found out she was pregnant!
Baia Das Pedras - Southern Pantanal, Brazil September 2018