SECRETS of one of the world’s least studied mammals, the giant armadillo, are being revealed in a new documentary.
Giant armadillos, rare, nocturnal and living mostly underground, are so hard to find even the show’s narrator David Attenborough has still not seen them in the wild 60 years on from his first attempt.
But now footage shot in Brazil by a Scots film crew shows how digging and burrowing by the largest of all armadillo species provides food and lodgings for at least 80 species, underpinning wildlife in Earth’s biggest tropical wetland.
Film-makers worked closely with scientists studying the elusive mammal to capture footage, including the first broadcast of a wild giant armadillo newborn baby and pictures inside the six-metre deep burrows.
Filmed in the 54,000 square mile Pantanal wilderness, the Hotel Armadillo documentary reveals new details of giant armadillo parenting and how their burrowing helps engineer the habitat for other species to benefit from.
Producer, director and cameraman Justin Purefoy said: “Viewers will never have seen giant armadillos filmed like this before. Rare, solitary, living mostly underground in very remote habitat and emerging only at night makes them extremely challenging to find, let alone film – so much so that even David Attenborough, our narrator, still yearns to see one in the wild despite embarking on the quest 60 years ago.”
Sir David, who went on an expedition to collect wild armadillos for London Zoo in the 1950s, at a time when that was considered acceptable, said he had spent a long time in Paraguay trying to find one.
But he said he had had “no luck at all”.
Having seen the film, he said he realised that was because they were hardly ever above ground.
“Because they had to dig burrows in the mostly dry parts of the wilderness, to prevent them becoming waterlogged when the rains come, they did so in tough areas, tangled with roots in the hard-baked earth.”
“Giant armadillos can create holes that other creatures find useful and could never dig for themselves,” he said.
Glasgow-based independent TV production company Maramedia worked with Royal Zoological Society of Scotland biologist Arnaud Desbiez and his team.
Hotel Armadillo is on BBC2 at 9pm on Friday.
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