Critters and Contagion

Let me tell you the story of my encounter with a wild animal.

It was the middle of the night and I was standing in my parent’s kitchen, a glass of water in hand, looking out over the pool when I noticed the telltale ripples of a drowning critter. I headed out back, expecting to find the usual desperate frog, but as I approached the water’s edge, I realized the ripples were far too big.

I peered through the darkness at a creature the size of a small dog. It was dark in color, and kicking up quite a wake as it desperately paddled the shallow end. I crept forward and could just make out a small, pointy snout protruding above the waterline and a pair of clawed forefeet chopping at the surface.

It wasn’t a frog. It wasn’t a dog. It was a large armadillo that had somehow fallen in, his escape hampered by the heavy shell encasing his chubby body. 

I grabbed a net and gave chase. He quickly veered toward the deep end, dropping a trail of turds to show his appreciation. I managed to corner him, then scooped him from the pool, flipping him onto the deck where he proceeded to hiss like a viper before turning tail to run. 

Armadillos are a strange sort of creature, their anatomy an amalgam of many different critters. Their pointy snout is rimmed by tiny sharp teeth, perfect for crunching insects, and their vision is quite limited, which explains why so many of them end up as roadkill. They sport long claws from their toes and have mangy tufts of hair on the undersides of their bodies. Their ears, like their snouts, are porcine and their shells are made up of dermal plates that enable some species to roll into a protective ball when threatened. They are related to sloths and anteaters and I must say, are sorely lacking in personality.

As if their cranky disposition and freakish bodies weren’t enough, they also hold the distinction of transmitting that most famous of biblical diseases – leprosy.

Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, is caused by Mycobacterium leprae and results in muscle weakness, nerve damage, and those terrible sores that spring to mind at the mention of this dreaded disease. Apparently our friend the armadillo has recently been passing it on to us humans, especially in Texas and Louisiana where it is hunted and, for some strange reason, eaten (don’t ask me why).

But leprosy is just one of several zoonoses - diseases that have jumped from animals to humans. HIV is another. HIV is believed to have originated among chimpanzees in the West African rainforest of Cameroon. Apparently the chimps contracted the disease by eating infected monkeys. The chimps then passed it on to the humans who ate them. 

During the colonial period in the early 1900s, natives were conscripted to build railroads to facilitate the booming rubber industry. The natives received vaccinations within the labor camps, and were inoculated using glass syringes. Unfortunately, there were not enough syringes to go around, and sterilization was not an option. Autoclaves are hard to come by in the jungle.

Natives who fled the camps by escaping into the jungle were forced to eat chimps to survive. Many of those natives were caught, brought back to camp, and inoculated along with everyone else; thus the spread of the disease from chimps to humans to more humans. 

Other infectious diseases, such as swine flu and SARS, were also passed from animals to humans. And whether it’s from eating infected flesh or simply living in close proximity to animals, germs have developed keen strategies for survival. Their ability to mutate and jump species is a testament to their fortitude.

But we can’t blame the armadillos. Apparently, leprosy originated in the Old World and was part and parcel of European colonization of the Americas. Since armadillos are a New World species, they must have contracted it from humans and are now simply repaying the favor. 

And, in their defense, I’m sure the number of armadillos squashed by our cars far exceeds the number of humans they've bumped off via leprosy.

For those of you who have never experienced the intriguing beauty of an armadillo, one of our 'dillo-munching friends from Texas has kindly videotaped one. I wonder if the little guy ended up on the dinner table…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIUC5eGMsFY