The armadillo did not run away. It stayed there, in the yard of a house in Texas, when the owner decided to shoot at it three times to scare it away.
What he failed to calculate was that these animals’ bony shells are practically curved plates capable of deflecting a projectile. One of the bullets ricocheted at exactly the right angle, changed direction in a fraction of a second, and came straight back at the man, striking him in the jaw. X-rays showed the bone fractured in several places, with projectile fragments lodged between his teeth.
The doctors who treated him noted that this type of self-inflicted injury caused by an armadillo ricochet, although rare, had been documented before in the southern United States. The animal’s anatomy, designed over millions of years of evolution to withstand predators, ended up protecting it better than the hunter had imagined.
