Breeds of Dogs

[dai bread]

Just curious: are armadillos pests or not? If so, why?

[The Great Carouser]

Originally posted by dai bread:
Just curious: are armadillos pests or not? If so, why?

dai the short answer, at least for some species in agricultural areas (flower beds beware!), is yes. It also seems possible to contract leprosy from an armadillo but the documented cases all seem to be because someone ate undercooked armadillo! A more detailed discussion may be found here:
Armadillos Online

<small>[ 06-21-2004, 11:24 AM: Message edited by: The Great Carouser ]</small>

[OperaTenor]

Originally posted by dai bread:
Just curious: are armadillos pests or not? If so, why?

What do you call an armadillo crossing the road?


A speed bump.

[piqaboo]

originally posted by haggis:
Fire ants are a curse .....
They gave my dog fits a few weeks ago when he inadvertently stepped on a mound while we were walking, it was pitiful and he didn't stop whining for almost 10 mins afterwards

Your dog is brave. I whined for much longer after my first fireant bite. It was 12 years ago outside a Florida DairyQueen and I can still find the scar from that little bugger.

<small>[ 06-21-2004, 01:09 PM: Message edited by: piqaboo ]</small>

[piqaboo]

Dai,
Are possums a pest in NZ?
Your possums are much prettier than ours!

Armadillos are singularly cursed - not only are they an animal host for leprosy, they are the only known animal host for culturing HIV. We can now culture HIV in flasks, but during early research, we could only grow it in the 9-banded armadillo. What a fate - culture medium for exotic nasty human viruses!

[eaphil]

Barfle:

But on the subject of insects, we've just about run the course with the 17-year cicadas. Quite an interesting bug, IMNSHO.

With NPR's apologies to Simon and Garfunkel, a spoof from Duane: Cicadas Invading My Yard

http://www.npr.org/programs/asc/openmic/index.php?episode=current#song6

[OperaTenor]

Originally posted by piqaboo:
Armadillos are singularly cursed - not only are they an animal host for leprosy, they are the only known animal host for culturing HIV. We can now culture HIV in flasks, but during early research, we could only grow it in the 9-banded armadillo. What a fate - culture medium for exotic nasty human viruses!

The 9-banded armadillo? Isn't that also known as Petri's armadillo?

[piqaboo]

Just dishy, OT.

[barfle]

eaphil, Duane has obviously experienced cicadas!

[dai bread]

Originally posted by piqaboo:
Dai,
Are possums a pest in NZ?
Your possums are much prettier than ours!

Armadillos are singularly cursed - not only are they an animal host for leprosy, they are the only known animal host for culturing HIV. We can now culture HIV in flasks, but during early research, we could only grow it in the 9-banded armadillo. What a fate - culture medium for exotic nasty human viruses!

Thanks for the info. All I knew about armadillos came from Rudyard Kipling's "Just So Stories".

As for possums......

They're an Australian marsupial imported to establish a fur trade. They do indeed have beautiful fur; soft and well- coloured. Thanks to the hysterics generated by the slaughter of those lovely doe-eyed Canadian Harp Seal pups, the fur trade pretty well died, so nobody hunted possums any more. Result, a population explosion. They have no predators here.

However, some politcally-incorrect people are now harvesting possums & blending the fur with merino wool. When you come here for you delayed honeymoon you'll be able to see what the result is. The cost will shock you, but remember it's only ⅔ for Americans because of the exchange rate.

Possums carry bovine TB. Naturally, farmers hate that. It's important to the rest of us too, since most of our exports are agricultural.

Possums eat our native trees to death. They are particularly fond of pohutukawa (metrosideos excelsa) This tree helps to hold up our coastal cliffs, and turns on a spectacular display of crimson flowers at Christmas. It's a tough tree, but no match for possums, and now needs help to propagate itself.

They are good climbers, and eat chicks & eggs out of nests. Many of our native birds are endangered species, and this is one reason why.

So please, everyone, if you get the chance to buy possum-fur products, take it!

<small>[ 06-21-2004, 05:53 PM: Message edited by: dai bread ]</small>

[piqaboo]

I liked the skins I saw that had tire tracks across them. Not only soft and yummy, but singularly funny.

I wonder what nutria fur is like?

[eaphil]

Piqaboo: Around here, nutria are known as the meanest creatures per ounce that God ever created. It is believed they carry switch blades and brass knuckles. If you come upon one in the woods, it won't run. It will turn toward you and taunt you. I don't know what the fur would be like, but if you collected enough for a coat, you'd have earned it. It would certainly make a statement about you. I doubt anyone who knows anything about nutria would bother you.

Dai Bread: If you're interested in some 'possum depopulating, I can send you some old family recipes.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

I had to look up what a "nutria" is. Fortunately, my part of the world is too dry for wet mutant rats. With lots of whiskers.

Eaphil's recipes might be worth trying. I don't think that the Aussie possum is the same thing, exactly, as the North American one, but barbecued marsupial of either sort probably tastes about the same, once there's enough sauce on it. As far as I can tell, barbecued anything tastes pretty good, with sauce.

Re barbecued possum; there's actually a Roadkill Cookoff somewhere in the South. It was on the food channel, and I recognized some of the entrees. To my extreme surprise!

[piqaboo]

Nutria were brought to ?Louisiana? to start a fur trade. It was one of those get rich quick deals, like using eucalyptus for railroad ties, or raising ostriches. I've never seen one, but I'll take my tazer walking in the Miss. woods should I go, just in case!

recipes: EVERYTHING tastes good as gumbo!

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

I wonder: Is there any kind of hound ornery enough to hunt nutria and still waterdog enough to go in the water and get them?

I'm envisioning a dachshund/labrador mix, perhaps? Though the mechanics of that cross might get tricky...

[eaphil]

I think I'd go to England and recruit some hound roaming around the Baskervilles.

<small>[ 06-22-2004, 02:27 PM: Message edited by: eaphil ]</small>

[haggis]

"dachshund/labrador mix"

Given the Dachsie's love of going into anything terrestrial (tunnels, holes etc) I would think a dachsie lab mix would get you a diving dog ala a canine "Sea Hunt"???

(Ed. "Ya know, half of the readers are scratching their heads and going "HuH?"

And Selma is just nodding and saying, "yep, Lloyd B. What a wet hunk!!"

Piq, not only are Armadillos singularly cursed, if you manage to drive over one and NOT hit him, the silly bugger jumps UP into the bottom of your car, thereby ensuring a Armadillo roadkill ratio of 90+%.

I'm in Sao Paulo, Brazill and I just did the "which way does the water swirl when you flush the toilet south of the equator" experiment with mixed results.....more research is needed.....and the maid thinks I got the runs

<small>[ 06-22-2004, 04:26 PM: Message edited by: Haggis ]</small>

[OperaTenor]

Originally posted by Haggis:
I'm in Sao Paulo, Brazill and I just did the "which way does the water swirl when you flush the toilet south of the equator" experiment with mixed results.....more research is needed.....and the maid thinks I got the runs

I, uh...
<Ed: "Don't bother trying to explain the mechanics of it to him, he'll never get it. Ya just gotta hope they'll charge him for all the water he's wasting playing in the toilet."
"Wasn't that a Bill Cosby routine? Maybe he could entertain the maids a little more if he said, 'Fire one, torpedo!' or something like that as he flushed. On second thought, maybe a bad idea. They'd haul him off to a looney bin & wouldn't let him post anymore.">

[mmichaelson]

To add to the problems of cursed armadillos. . .we were camping in West Texas one time when I was a small girl and my dad saw an armadillo and decided to investigate. He walked over to it and reached down to touch it. . .
not only did it jump straight up in the air as Haggis stated, it also screamed in a close approximation of what a small child sounds like when it screams bloody murder.
Needless to say, the encounter scared both my dad and the armadillo.

[eaphil]

Herding armadillo in the middle of the night is a wild experience. Our cocker spaniel cornered one in the yard and would not cease her barking/howling/baying. The armadillo burrowed (very very quickly) into the flower bed, leaving only the hard shell exposed. It required a great deal of prodding with a (long) stick to convince Mr. Dillo to move on. The armadillo sound is what I think prehistoric swine would make.