Ever seen roadkill that, at first sight,
you did not have a clue what it is / used-to-be ?

Such was my first roadkill armadillo.

Had it jumped straight up in the air, as described
in an earlier post to this thread? who knows?

In any case, it was a very fresh kill.
Having been crushed entirely,
the remains were literally covered in bright-colored gore,
which made it that much more difficult to make out what was there.

But the real double-take-maker
was that business that looked like a bowl that had broken apart
into individual ribs which stuck out at all angles.


Miles and miles later down the same road,
in full sunlight with no other traffic, between towns in the fields,
leisurely enough that I could glance at what was moving about near the road,
I spotted motion in a shallow ditch,
looked at the little armored beastie creeping about,
and identified the live unharmed armadillo with
"Oh, THAT's what that was back there on the road..."

And during all those minutes / miles in between,
I was driving along,
running down a list in my mind,
eliminating all the possibilities of
roadkill for that gory mess I had driven around:

it wasn't a possum,
it wasn't a raccoon,
it wasn't a skunk,
it wasn't a groundhog,
it wasn't . . .