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An Argentinian farmer named Juan de Dios Sota was simply transporting his young cattle when he stumbled across something much older a couple of 20,000-year-old giant armadillos.
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Right beneath the farmer’s feet beside the dried riverbed of the Vallimanca stream, were the fossilized remains of four gigantic armadillos also known as Glyptodon.
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The Institute of Archaeological and Paleontological Investigations of the Pampa Quaternary (INCUAPA) explained that a regional drought revealed the ancient specimens which had once been submerged in the river.
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“We went there expecting to find two Glyptodonts when the excavation started and then two more were found!” Pablo Messino, an on-site archaeologist, told Daily Mail.
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“It is the first time there have been four animals like this in the same site,” added Messino.
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Most of them were facing the same direction like they were walking towards something.”
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Experts wonder if perhaps the group represented a male and female parent leading their young, like a sort of nuclear family of ancient armadillos.
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For on-site paleontologist Ricardo Bonini, the discovery of these VW Beetle-sized specimens could help explain their ancient family structure.
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He wonders if perhaps the creatures experienced sexual dimorphism, meaning that the size of an individual armadillo would depend on its gender.
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“These kinds of cases, in which several individuals together who died in the same circumstances, are really exceptional and undoubtedly will give us a lot of information about these enigmatic animals and will allow us to test several hypotheses that we have been driving in recent years,” he said.
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Some of the ancient armadillos had shells as long as five feet and as thick as two inches.
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According to INCUAPA, Glyptodon roamed South America for 30 million years before facing extinction around 10,000 years ago.
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Some believe early man was to blame for the animal’s disappearance by overusing their hard shells for shelter.
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As part of the Xenarthra (or Edentata) superorder of mammals, these hefty armadillo ancestors were staunch herbivores.
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A 2016 DNA test confirmed that Glyptodon were indeed related to modern-day armadillos — the latter of which means “little armored one” in Spanish.
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These creatures naturally evolved an armored exterior to protect themselves against other animals, like an ancient, flightless, carnivorous bird known as the Terror Bird.
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Even areas not covered by the animal’s shell had bony deposits (osteoderms) as further safeguards.
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The ancient armadillo’s tails, meanwhile, could be wielded as weapons with bony clusters at the end, sometimes even spikes.
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This isn’t the first time a discovery like this was made in the region.
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In 2015, yet another Argentinian farmer found a three-foot-long shell belonging to a Glyptodon.
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Farmer Jose Antonio Nievas initially thought he discovered a dinosaur shell.
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Ultimately, he stumbled upon something just as exciting — the remains of a specimen potentially as old as 30 million years.
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As it stands, experts are forging ahead with further testing and are eager to assess just how old these armadillos were when they died, and how they met their end.
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