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At one time, taxidermied armadillos were common in Florida's tourist stores, but now you never see them. Why?

Answer:

A major reason for the decline in armadillo taxidermy was the discovery that armadillos sometimes carry leprosy.

The discovery was made when researchers thought that they could use armadillos to study leprosy, as their naturally low body temperature should make them easily susceptible to it. They started noticing that some of the wild caught specimens seemed to be already infected.

Further study showed that on average, only about 5% of the population carried the disease, but in some areas, as much as one third of the population was infected.

That was enough to cause most taxidermists to avoid armadillos, even though it did not seem that people could catch the disease from them. Since then, there have been documented cases of armadillo-to-human infection, making armadillo taxidermy even less popular.

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