Armadillos - continued...

Newmann and Patterson published a number of papers dealing with matters of development, cytology, sex-determination and heredity in the Texas armadillo and also formulated theories about the causes of twinning, a topic of ongoing debate. After the confirmation of "specific polyembryony", the armadillo served as a powerful natural tool for investigating certain basic problems of heredity, such as the analysis of "prederminative" versus "epigenetic" factors or the limits of heredity control. However, during that time, the difficulty of raising armadillos in the laboratory meant that these animals could not become significant tools in laboratory studies. Since then the armadillos have become important as research organism in the biomedical research as they are natural hosts of several protozoal and bacterial pathogens, such as leprosy.

Bibliography

• Fernandez, Miguel. 1909. Beiträge zur Embryologie der Gürteltiere. Morphologisches Jahrbuch 39: 302-333
• Fernandez, Miguel. 1915. Die Entwicklung der Mulita. La Embriologia de la Mulita (Tatusia hybrida Desm.). La Plata; Leipzig: Museo de La Plata; Karl W. Hiersemann
• Hopwood, Nick. 1999, "Giving Body" to Embryos. Modelling, Mechanism, and Microtome in late Nineteenth-Century Anatomy. Isis 90: 462-496
• Newman, H. H. and Patterson, J. Thomas. 1910. The Development of the Nine-banded Armadillo from the Primitive Streak Stage To Birth; With Especial Reference to the Question of Specific Polyembryony. Journal of Morphology 21: 359-423
• Newman, H. H. 1913. The Natural History of the Nine-banded Armadillo of Texas. The American Naturalist 47: 513-539