An early stimulus for Charles Darwin to begin thinking about evolution as he noted the similarities between the fossil form and modern armadillos in the same area of Argentina and Uruguay. 'This wonderful relationship in the same continent between the dead and the living, will, I do not doubt, hereafter throw more light on the appearance of organic beings on our earth, and their disappearance from it, than any other class of facts.' (Voyage of the Beagle).

Darwin encountered fossils of these giant armadillos on five occasions in Uruguay and Argentina.