Research highlights
2025
A new species of armadillo !
In the 1990s, fieldwork in French Guiana led scientists to suggest the existence of a distinct armadillo species in the region. However, it took more than 30 years to unravel the full story. This required an extensive sampling effort across the entire distribution of the widespread nine-banded armadillo, combining museum specimens with fresh tissue samples.
Genomic analyses, supported by morphological evidence, revealed that what had long been considered a single widespread species actually comprises four distinct species, including one previously unknown. The Guianan long-nosed armadillo (Dasypus guyanensis), distributed across the Guiana Shield, is the first armadillo species to be described in more than 35 years.
This discovery highlights how much biodiversity remains to be documented, even among relatively well-known mammals, and demonstrates the power of combining genomic and morphological approaches to uncover cryptic diversity. Overall, it reminds us that the Neotropical fauna still holds many hidden surprises.