Dead 'dillo. No funeral arrangements have yet been made.
JACKSON CO., Ill. - Above you'll see a photo of a sight we observe on every stinking Alabama road when we go on vacation, including the main highway running right past our beach house.
However, this is not Alabama. This is southern Illinois; more specifically, Spillway Road that runs along Crab Orchard Lake, southeast of Carbondale. You can see it on the map.
Right now we're doctoring in C-dale because that's where all the specialists are for the specific disorders we're experiencing. It's a boring ride back to home base, so we opted to do a little touring of the area following today's arduous appointment. We were several miles down Spillway Road when, having just passed Drew Road, I spotted what is an extremely familiar sight while on vacation, but of course, if we were on vacation, it'd look like this:
This is just, like...one HOUR'S worth. We wouldn't be able to see the map if we did a 24-hour one...it'd be nothing but red arrows at this viewpoint.
Instead, I blurted out "WAIT! This is Illinois, not 'bammy!!" My lovely bride instantly thought I had lost what few marbles I have left, especially when I gunned it in an effort to get ahead of traffic so I could find a place to turn around. All the while, I was shouting "Do we have armadillos in Illinois??" and Ang, who had just endured some grueling doctor stuff, was understandably trying to comprehend what I was getting at.
"I believe we've heard about one or two being hit and killed down in Pulaski County," she advised as I was speeding back to the scene of the dead critter (unbeknownst to her; she still just thought I had lost it). "And then we saw that one on the back road between Allendale and Mt. Carmel last year..."
(I'd forgotten about that. Anyway. Back to the story).
We got up to the carcass and she got a good look.
"Yep. That's a 'dillo," she assented; she knows armadillos, both dead and alive; she lived in the deep south for 13 years. That map above is mild by comparison to what you'd actually behold regarding squished armadillos if you were just tooling around Mobile and Baldwin counties. Mostly Baldwin; they seem to thrive there, and tend to get into stuff at our place there...especially if their buddies the raccoons knock over the trash totes.
We turned around on Drew Road and headed back south on Spillway just a few hundred yards, and I was able to snap two pics before traffic came up on us again. This is what you see here: Squished 'dillo.
It really is a different pic. Still no funeral arrangements, however.
This map says no 'dillos in Illinois...
This one shows that there MIGHT be 'dillos in Illinois...
What this does to freak people out (other than 'dillos being outside of their natural habitat, which is really supposed to be in the southern part of the U.S.; see above maps) is the threat of leprosy. Yes, armadillos have been proven to carry the bacterium that causes leprosy (Mycobacterium leprae), also known as Hansen's Disease, which used to be the cause of social ostracizing, per the Old Testament, in order to limit the spread, as it was quite the contagion back in the day.
However, it was quite the contagion because the people God was warning about it had a genetic predisposition to catch, carry, suffer and spread the disease, which ultimately could cause extremities (fingers, toes, nose, lips, ears) to rot and fall off. Not everybody who gets exposed to the bacterium that causes leprosy catches it. Some don't even carry it. Some are not impacted by it at all; only those with one of the six variants of the genetic predisposition (starting with an ancestry that tracks back to the Jews) are really at risk. And if you're the unfortunate person who has a gene or two in the pool at the time Mycobacterium leprae gets you, guess what...? It's easily treatable. It's a mycobacterium (fungus-based bacteria). We've made great strides in medicine since the parting of the Red Sea. A lil fungus bacterium is simple to overcome. And, it's extremely rare. Meaning not every 'dillo carries it...it's just that, as far as critters go, they can.
So...if you see a dead 'dillo, leave it be. Who knows what kind of gene you're carrying...or what bacterium the 'dillo is carrying. Leave it to God's garbage disposals, the carrion birds. Apparently they don't carry the bacterium, nor are they impacted by it. Why they're migrating up here is beyond most peeps, but we have a theory that has to do with illegals and stuff they bring into the country via trucks, wherein armadillos can hide or hitch a ride. Pulaski and many of the southern counties here have been filled with illegals for years. It was testified at the Raymond Martin Jackson County case in early 2010 that Raymondo was fully aware of Scates Farms' illegals trucking in large bales of marijuana from Texas, which is a state overrun, like Alabama and other Gulf states, with armadillos. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that one of the critters would hitch a ride and set up housekeeping in the area. So look for more of them. Maybe not as many armadillos as illegals, but they're here, all the same.