(UPDATED/Radio Iowa) – An armored animal most people would associate with Texas or Oklahoma is being spotted more frequently in Iowa. Armadillos have been making their way north for decades, according to Jim Coffey, an Iowa D-N-R wildlife biologist. Coffey tells K-C-R-G T-V that armadillo sightings are being tracked by the agency.

“Armadillos are not something that’s new to Iowa,” Coffey says. “We’ve had reports for many, many years, but it’s a species that’s not commonly seen and it kind of falls through the cracks.” For the past several years, Coffey says the D-N-R has been logging sightings of these armored critters anywhere they appear in Iowa.

“We’ve been keeping, you know, good records for the last six years that have indicated about 12 to 24 sightings per year, verifiable across the state,” he says. Armadillos can jump up to four feet into the air and they average about 12 pounds as adults. Coffey says the state’s changing climate played a big part in the arrival of armadillos.

Armadillo — National Park Service photo

“As climate change takes impact, we see that some of our northern boundaries are pushed, or the warmer climates are pushed further north,” he says, “then armadillos will be able to utilize that territory as well.” The DNR has no plans to manage the spread of armadillos, since the only threat they pose to the ecosystem is digging burrows to live in. Plus, they can’t survive harsh winters, so armadillos aren’t established in Iowa — at least not yet.