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Digital models of plaster casts are used to quantify several aspects, including a new property, conicality. Plaster casts of foraging pits showed that most were asymmetrical, vertically oriented, downward-tapering elliptical cones (width>depth), with smooth to coarsely dimpled walls and common elongate, parallel grooves, isolated curved grooves, and distinct paired grooves, resulting from scratching with the elongated middle two digits of the forelimb. Field observations yielded an association between one large-diameter (41 cm wide) dwelling burrow, three relatively short, straight shelter burrows (up to 19 cm wide and 38 cm long), and abundant variously sized foraging pits (up to 18 cm wide and 14.5 cm deep).
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novemcinctus with implications for recognition and interpretation of similar conical trace fossils. This research describes the foraging pits constructed by D. Little ichnological attention has been given to these foraging pits even though their great prevalence within the geographic range of extant armadillos implies that they might have a trace fossil record in paleosols extending back to at least the Paleocene. The nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus) is a well known burrower, but individuals spend the majority of their time above ground foraging for soil organisms by repeatedly digging pits through the soil surface. Plain-language and multi-lingual abstracts The foraging pits of the nine-banded armadillo, Dasypus novemcinctus (Mammalia: Xenarthra: Dasypodidae), and implications for interpreting conical trace fossilsĬopyright Palaeontological Association, December 2014