Armadillos have been slowly making their way northward and appear to have finally reached the Buckeye State.
A nine-banded armadillo was found dead about 4 miles east of Oxford, Ohio, earlier this month and reported to a biologist at Miami University, who collected it.
"A lady found him in the morning in her driveway, and she posted that on Facebook, saying, 'Hey, I have a dead armadillo. Do you think that's interesting?' And I emailed her and said, 'Yes, that's very interesting. I'm going to be there in five minutes. I'm going to come pick it up," Tereza Jezkova, Ph.D., associate professor of biology, tells WVXU.
Jezkova says the animal was likely hit by a car, but the remains were in good shape. After Jezkova's research is completed, the armadillo will be preserved and housed at Miami's Hefner Museum of Natural History.
"We don't know whether he lived here, if this was his territory, or if he simply got lost and wandered dozens of miles from somewhere else, possibly Indiana or Kentucky," Jezkova says. "We don't know if it's an isolated incident or if there are more of them. ... But it's very likely that we will be seeing more and more of them."
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) tells WVXU this is the state's fifth confirmed roadkill armadillo. The first two were found about a month apart in 2021 in Richland and Morrow counties. Researchers have theorized those two were likely unwitting hitchhikers from the animal's normal range that fell from a vehicle in Ohio.
Two more were also discovered in Butler County, one in April 2025 and the second earlier this year on April 15.
Catherine Dennison, an ODNR wildlife biologist, agrees armadillos will soon be calling Ohio home.
"Based on the location of these latest sightings (in southwest Ohio in a county bordering Indiana), as well as the fact that all of the sightings are in the same general area, that it is likely that this is the first evidence of natural expansion of armadillos into Ohio," she says in a statement.
Jezkova says she's not surprised; she's been expecting them for a while.
In 2025, the U.S. Geological Survey predicted armadillos would likely move into Ohio from Indiana.
Several hundred armadillos have been spotted over the last two decades in Indiana and Kentucky, so it was only a matter of time before they made their way over the border into Ohio.
This armadillo was male, Jezkova says, noting males usually expand and move further than females. She expects we'll eventually start seeing female armadillos and offspring.
Don't eat an armadillo
While it's true that armadillos can spread leprosy, the likelihood of the disease transmitting to humans is low, according to Jezkova.
"It's not easy to catch leprosy from an armadillo. You really need to put a lot of effort into it, like eat it or interact with the internal organs and so on. You are not going to catch leprosy from simply sitting on grass where an armadillo walked before. Dogs cannot catch leprosy, so that's another good news," she says.
Armadillos are nocturnal, which may explain why so many of them are often found dead along roadsides from Texas through the Midwest. They also don't love the cold.
"Because of many factors (sparse fur, limited body fat, and generally low body temperature) armadillos are highly susceptible to hypothermia or starvation during winter months at this northern extent of their range. Armadillos can survive periods of extreme cold by remaining in their burrows," according to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.
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