Nine-Banded Armadillo

I hope I never meet one. The name alone scares the poo out of me.

Huntsville has a system of bike/walking trails not too far from our house. We have been on them before, briefly, and were impressed. So I decided to go ride them on my bike yesterday. Great idea in the middle of some August heat.

Great idea if you're only going to be on them for a few minutes, which I was not. I got a tad lost. Long enough to make through an entire Sklabro County (not Country) episode.

Before I entered the trails, I looked at the map . . . which did me no good. There was also a list of animals and varmints one might meet on the trail. One particular critter was called a nine-banded armadillo. It seriously sounds like a cross between something Jack Black was attacked by in Nacho Libre and one of Chuck Norris' pets.

Why is the armadillo banded? And why is it banded nine times? I don't know. And I don't want to know. The name alone is frightening . . . or, at least odd, a tad askew, to quote Seinfeld.

Fortunately, I did not come across one, as far as I know. I did come across a dog on the trails, which I thought, for a second, might have been wild and rabid, ready to tear my left arm off. I must have been on-edge, waiting for the nine-banded armadillo to attack me, because the dog was neither wild nor rabid, as its owner was just around the corner. In fact, the dog was scared of my bike.

Looking back at the picture, the nine-banded bandito looked as harmless (to humans) as any other armadillo. Nothing to it. But still, I'm not messing with a nine-banded anything, much less an armadillo.

So stay thirsty, my friends . . . and stay clear of those nine-banded boogy monsters.