Priodontes maximus (Kerr)

VOSS, ROBERT S., LUNDE, DARRIN P. & SIMMONS, NANCY B., 2001, The Mammals Of Paracou, French Guiana: A Neotropical Lowland Rainforest Fauna Part 2. Nonvolant Species, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2001 (263), pp. 1-236 : 66

Priodontes maximus (Kerr)

We only saw the giant armadillo once, on the night of 27 October 1994, when A. L. Peffley and RSV encountered a large (ca. 1 m HBL) adult of unknown sex excavating a mound of dead wood beside a rotting log in primary forest near a small stream at ca. 20: 00 hours. Alarmed by our headlights, it fled uphill toward a large treefall, where we were unable to follow in the dense undergrowth. Bushnegro forestry workers have sometimes pointed out burrows and excavations said to be made by this species to P. Petronelli (personal commun., 1993); according to them, collared peccaries (Pecari tajacu) use the abandoned burrows of giant armadillos as nocturnal retreats. Only one individual is known to have been shot by local hunters, about ten years before our inventory fieldwork began.