Armadillos have been reported from 62 of Alabama’s 67 counties, which makes them one of the state’s most thoroughly documented mammals. The spread is real, but the weighting isn’t: Baldwin, Jefferson, and Madison counties lead the tally, following the Gulf Coast and the Birmingham and Huntsville metros, where the most observers live.
Reports come in every month of the year, cresting from March through July and rising again in early fall. Armadillos don’t hibernate, so part of that pattern is the observer calendar. The spring climb also lines up with breeding-season wandering, when the animals travel and get noticed on roads.
A century ago there were no armadillos in Alabama at all. The species made its way east from Texas across the Gulf states through the 1900s, and Alabama now sits among the most heavily reported states in the Southeast, a colonization measured one county at a time.
