via the trailcam…

S.P. Gass

This rock den has an entrance suitable for a small mammal.

Rock Den in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia

As reported by Leesburg Patch:

Two zebras managed to escape from the Leesburg Animal Park on Monday, Nov. 28 around 12 p.m. after a gate was left open in the park. Several calls were made to the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office that both animals had been seen in the area of Route 15 near Valley Brooke Lane…

…The animals were tranquilized and returned safely to the park around 3 p.m. Both zebras are reported to be healthy and doing well.

My trailcam got these three pics of a deer earlier this month…

Doe Grazing

Doe on the Trailcam

Trailcam Deer Picture

The Washington Post reports today:

The armadillo arrived in Texas in the 1880s, in Florida in the 1920s and has since settled into “totally unexpected” areas including southern Illinois, Indiana, Kansas and Missouri.

Biologists speculate that if the trend continues, the armadillo may soon be turning up in Washington, Maryland and Virginia, and even as far north as New Jersey.

The North Carolina Museum of Life + Science reports that armadillos have already reached southern North Carolina:

Once common to the very southern states like Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Florida these little tanks have been constantly moving their range further north and east. They have been sighted in our state most usually on the southernmost stretch between Wilmington and Charlotte. If their trend continues, they will have spread across the majority of the state in the next two to three years. That’s all is took them to occupy almost all of South Carolina from their appearance in 1995.

The ability of the armadillo to spread so successfully is due mainly to it’s high reproductive rate, lack of natural predators, and little desire of the American people to hunt and eat them. They probably won’t get much farther than Ohio, New Jersey and Pennsylvania due to their inability to handle the harsh winter climates…