Armadillos Got No Respect, Until Now : Wildlife: ‘Dillo Man’ speaks for animal derided as Texas turkeys, pocket dinosaurs, road pizzas, possums on the half shell.

If you’ve ever felt sorrow--or revulsion--at the sight of all those squashed armadillos alongside Southern roads, Bob Graessle may have just the organization for you.

Graessle, known around here as “Dillo Man,” is head of the International Order of the Armadillo. He founded it about a decade ago, he says, because of his love of the primitive mammal and his belief that others feel the same way. He claims that about 1,200 have signed up.

“I discovered what I called the armadillo underground. There are a lot of people out there fascinated with armadillos, from Supreme Court justices to rock ‘n’ roll stars to everyday people,” Graessle said. “I realized they needed an organization to belong to.”

The young entrepreneur won’t tell you who those armadillo-loving justices are, though. He said that even though the IOA is a very “loose-knit organization,” he doesn’t have members’ permission to reveal their names.

The only requirement for membership: a $10 fee. Members get a decal, a membership card and a sheet containing myths, legends and facts on the armadillo.

“I always get calls from conference planners wanting to plan our convention for us,” said Graessle. “I always say we are afraid to cross the road.”

Graessle seems obsessed with the ever-humble armadillo. “It draws on our compassion,” he said. “It is such a maligned creature. It is not a thing of obvious beauty to some people.”

Armadillos, he observes, “are stupid. They get run over. You think of an armadillo and it is the one you see on the side of the road. Some people assume they are born that way.”

In fact, he pointed out, one nickname for armadillo is road pizza. They are also known as pocket dinosaurs, Texas turkeys, and possums on the half shell. During the Great Depression they were known as Hoover hogs.

One of America’s more celebrated armadillos, the stuffed creature named Clarence on the television show “Night Court,” cheers Graessle’s heart. “Good publicity,” he said.

Graessle said he decided he “needed to be in the armadillo business” while taking a statistics course at the University of Florida about a dozen years ago.

He started “Dillo Ware,” a company that sold T-shirts and other gift ware items featuring armadillos. That company has gone by the wayside, but the International Order of the Armadillo, like the animal itself, seems to survive, even thrive, against the odds.

Most people, Graessle said, don’t know a great deal about armadillos. “It is not a fad animal like the pink flamingo.” As a result of his organization, he said, “I became a national clearinghouse for armadillo information.”

Here’s some of it:

Armadillo means “little armored one” in Spanish. The only type of armadillo living in the United States is the nine-banded armadillo, although there are 20 species living in Central and South America. Armadillos can live 10 to 15 years in the wild and are the only mammals to routinely produce identical quadruplets.

In many areas of South America, says the Dillo Man, and not just during times of Great Depression, armadillos are a culinary delight. Nice tender meat. Gauchos call them traveling lunch boxes and often cook them over a campfire.

When he’s not talking armadillos, Graessle is general manager of Southern Nature Works Inc., a company that sells diamond-shaped nature signs which resemble highway road signs.

The aluminum signs, sold in outdoor specialty shops and in several mail-order catalogues, carry such messages as “Armadillo Crossing,” “Bird Sanctuary,” and “Gator Crossing.”

“Southern Nature Works bloomed out of the armadillo business,” Graessle said. “I did this ‘Armadillo Crossing’ sign and it outdid everything I had done by 2 to 1.”

Although Texas is considered a stronghold for armadillos, Graessle said his members come from all over the United States and he even has some foreign members.

“I believe my role is creating armadillo awareness,” he said. “The less ignorance there is about armadillos, the less they will be ridiculed.”

Ridiculed? He must mean gags like the one about why did the chicken cross the road?

Answer: To prove to the armadillo that it could be done.