I have heard that armadillos carry leprosy. Is this true? How about any other nasty diseases?
You see why scientific progress is slow. I have, however, established that the answer to your question is yes–armadillos do carry leprosy.
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Leprosy, one of history’s most dread diseases, has been around since ancient times. But it has never been easy to study because the bacillus that causes it, Mycobacterium leprae, can’t be grown in the lab. We’re still not sure of such basic facts as how you catch it. (Apparently nasal discharges are one form of transmission, so I guess you don’t want to borrow a hanky in a leper colony.)
Later the researchers discovered something odd: some armadillos already had leprosy. At first they thought the animals had escaped from the leprosy-inoculation experiment or become infected through contact with the lab’s waste. But eventually these possibilities were ruled out. Nine-banded armadillos, of which there are 30 to 50 million in the southeastern U.S., are believed to be the only significant natural reservoir of leprosy apart from humans. (A few cases have been found in chimps and mangabey monkeys in Africa.) How the armadillos got leprosy in the first place nobody knows. But there you are.
