Giclee reprint of an original lithograph from Animaux nouveaux ou rares recueillis pendant l'expédition dans les parties centrales de l'Amérique du Sud, de Rio de Janeiro à Lima, et de Lima au Para is a  zoological study published by P. Bertrand in Paris starting in 1855.

This multi-volume work compiles the groundbreaking discoveries of the perilous French state-sponsored expedition (1843–1847) led by explorer Francis de Castelnau. Renowned French paleontologist and zoologist Paul Gervais was tasked with authoring the comprehensive Anatomie and Mammifères volumes for the series. 

This hand-colored lithograph, brings Paul Gervais’s scientific descriptions to life. Meticulously drawn on stone by the master natural history illustrator Jean-Charles Werner (Werner Lith.) and beautifully printed by the Parisian workshop of Gény-Gros, this striking plate depicts a mature giant armadillo, formally labeled at the base under its historical genus variant Priodontes gigas.

Werner’s illustration masterfully captures the animal's key evolutionary adaptations, specifically highlighting the massive, sickle-shaped digging claws on its forefeet and the complex, tile-like configuration of its flexible carapacial bands. By placing the heavily armored creature within a realistically textured, rocky neotropical landscape, the print successfully provided 19th-century European scholars with a vital lifelike counterpart to the rigid skull and skeletal diagrams featured in Gervais's accompanying comparative anatomy sections.