Trivia: To accommodate all sorts of viewers, the studio also made a silent version of the film (for cinemas without sound equipment) and a Spanish-speaking version (to be shown in Latin America). The Spanish version is considered a better film, because it was filmed after the English takes each day, so the Spanish director and actors would watch the English takes and decide how to improve on them.
Trivia: Producer Carl Laemmle's daughter, Rebekah Isabelle Laemmle called Carla is the young woman reading about the mountains and castles in the coach at the very beginning of the movie. She is thrown into someone's lap by the violent movement of the coach because the driver was in such a hurry to reach the inn by sundown. She had small parts in a dozen or so other movies, the last one filmed in 2014 at age 104.
Answer: Pretty sure this qualifies as a mistake, just like the llamas in Troy. Armadillos only live in the Americas. Later on, they have opossums too! So the story about not wanting to show rats could very well be true. Nevetheless, if this isn't a mistake, I don't know what is.
Spiny Norman