After the recent births of baby koalas and a lowland nyala calf Yara, Edinburgh Zoo shared another exciting announcement of new life added to their big family. The birth of two baby armadillos was announced on April 21, as they were being weighed at five weeks old.
The tiny twin’s gender was also confirmed during their first routine health check, with both being boys. What is more, we’re obsessed with the baby armadillos names: Pedro Pascal and Montezuma. So, you can now go to Edinburgh Zoo and take a picture with Pedro Pascal and the Aztec emperor!
The babies are still spending lots of time with their mother, who is always by her side taking care of Pedro and Montezuma. While the baby armadillos are mostly seen in their wee burrow for now, hopefully they will become more adventurous by exploring more of the enclosure in the coming weeks and months.
Fun facts about armadillos
While the world armadillo means “little armoured one” in Spanish, there are plenty of other interesting facts about the peculiar animals. Armadillos are actually descendants of heavily armoured dinosaur-sized mammals called glyptodonts who have been extinct since the last ice age and have been around since 35 million years ago.
The animals are mainly nocturnal and sleep around 16 hours a day, and mainly sleep in individual burrows, just like we can see Pedro Pascal and Montezuma peeking out theirs in the picture. While awake, they spend most of their time foraging, which is more than the average mammal: armadillos love to eat! There are many species of armadillos, with giant ones and tiny ones, such as the fairy armadillo, and only two of the species can roll into a ball, contrary to popular belief.