CHASING ARMADILLOS

The Valdes Península

Two hours‘ by air to the south of Buenos Aires lies the Valdés Peninsula. A paradise for lovers of extreme animals. In order to prepare material in advance for a number Beagle episodes Joost (camera), Gijs (editorial / research / direction), IJsbrand (director) and I (sound) together with the artist twins Knowledge and Knowledge we all spend 3 dayscrossing the pampas. Our base is Puerto Pyrámides, a village not far from Puerto Madryn, which in turn is a port where, in 2 months time, the Beagle will make her shorelines fast.

With Knowledge and Knowledge (K and K) we go looking for "Armadillos". If I remember correctly, the armadillo is the only original animal of the South American continent that is neither extinct as a result of evolution nor exterminated by man.

K and K truly know an unbelievable amount of stuff. If they say something they do with a huge amount of enthusiasm. Their facial expressions, gestures and cheerfulness are contagious and they arouse our curiosity..

What I realized is that anything is possible through evolution: everything that lives in the sea can evolve to live on land and vice versa..

To illustrate how unusual South America really is K and K first set to work with pen, paper and scissors. In no time, there is a crazy world map and a variety of still crazier animals. Alfons Knowledge shows that Laurasia (a lump of land in the northern hemisphere) and Gwondana (a lump of land in the Southern Hemisphere) over time (millions of millions of years) and after some movement in the Earth, created an island; what is now known as South America. (Cutting swiftly through the billions of years of earth’s history with a blunt axe).

Still later came the isthmus that joins North and South America was formed. Then his brother Adri takes over and places various animals on different continents. All at once it’s clear to me why the elephant is found only in Africa and not in America, why the horse is indigenous to both Europe and North America.

Armadillos are found primarily in South America. All kinds of animals that lived on the island that was South America had become very complacent over the millenia because they had no natural enemies. Until the earth’s plates shifted and created a land bridge between North and South America!

The animals that had evolved to perfection (ie speed and hunting) in the northern continent walked cheerfully South into their newly created territory (through Central America)!

Utterly defenseless, each original species of the South American continent was either expelled or eaten. Apart from the armadillo. Later still, the Indians, in their turn ate or eradicated all surviving species. Apart from the armadillo.

We jump in the car and drive across the Argentinian pampas. The Netherlands is flat, but this part of Argentina knows all about being flat too! We drive on 4-lane dirt roads through a landscape which makes our own Veluwe look like a mountain range.

In no time at all K and K are yelling with delight. In the back of the Berlingo they crawl over each other to get the best view of a ball of light brown fur that’s leaping away from us. Never in all my life would I have noticed, but we get out of the car immediately.

It’s very difficult to combine enthusiasm, curiosity and caution! The jumping ball appears to be a Mara-Mara: the physical description looks most like a cross between a guinea pig, a deer and a hare. Long antelope-like high legs, jumps away like a hare, has such wagging tail and is also a plant eater.

Evolution gone mad. But no sign of an armadillo.