The Scaly Guardian: Everything You Should Know About The Pangolin
Misidentified as a reptile, though it is in fact a warm-blooded mammal,
the pangolin is one of the weirdest and most beleaguered animals on Earth. Covered in keratin scales with a tongue longer than its body, this shy nocturnal creature is vital to the ecosystems it inhabits.
Where Are Pangolins Mostly Found?
Pangolins are found across parts of Africa and Asia. They are separated between the two continents:
Asia Four species are found in southern, south-eastern and eastern Asia. Countries are India, Nepal, China, the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia (on islands like Borneo and Java).
Africa: All four species are found in Sub-Saharan Africa, from places like Kenya and Uganda to South Africa and Senegal.
They feed across a variety of types of geography such as rainforest, dry woodland (miombo), thick brush and savannah grasslands but always in places where their sole food source – ants and termites – is plentiful.
How Many Pangolin Species Are There?
Pangolins come in eight species that are split evenly between Africa and Asia.
It’s difficult to determine their exact lifespan in the wild, but they are assumed to live 10-15 years. In captivity and fed well (and with no predators to worry about),
some individuals live up to 20 years. But hardly any pangolins in the wild survive to old age, given the pressure of intense poaching.
How Large A How big of a pangolin can you find?
Size varies dramatically by species:
Tiniest: The Black-bellied Pangolin (a tree-dwelling African species) is 12-16 inches (30-40 cm) long head to tail, and weighs about 3.5 -5.5 lbs (1.6–2.5 kg).
Biggest: There are 8 species of pangolin, but the Giant Pangolin (a ground-dwelling African species) is the biggest. It can grow up to 55 in (140 cm) long from head to tail and over 72 lbs (33 kg). It tail could add another 26 inches (66 centimeters).
What Risks Do Pangolins Face?
So there they are the depressing record-holder as, and I’m going to use quotation marks on this, “the most trafficked mammal in the world.” Their fears are overwhelmingly human-created:
Illegal Wildlife Trade: This is the huge, existential menace. Pangolins are brutally poached on an industrial scale to supply:
Their Scales: They have S/S A pangolin’s scales are up for grabs, as they might be made of actual skin from a pangolin or keratin (like human finger nails). (I say “again”because in Chinese medicine they are medicinal as well.)
A delicacy in some cultures, and a mark of wealth.
Their Skin and Their Unborn: Towards a cultural medicine for the other in many ieerts generations.
Habitat Loss – They are losing habitat due to deforestation for agriculture and logging as well as from human settlement which upsets their home and food source.
Electrocution: They are electrocuted in fields around India and elsewhere.
With habitat becoming fragmented by roads, pangolins are often left as roadkill.
When Are They Most Active?
Pangolins are usually nocturnal (they’re active at night) and solitary. They are less married to a calendar season like winter or summer than they are temperature and the presence of food.
In The Cold/Dry Season : Girl ants and Termite colonies can easily dig deeper with some species especially when it is so cold or dry. They might be holed up in houses for years, venturing outside only on warm nights to scavenge.
Wet/Warm Season: These toads are more active during warmer, wet months when their insects prey is plentiful.
Mating Season Changes to feeding habits to enhance mate finding activities may affect behavior differently among species and localities.
The pangolin is a walking pinecone, a mild-mannered insectivore with roots in deep time. Now, it is starving itself toward extinction.
Despite all eight species having CITES protection (protection provided to plants and animals that are threatened by international trade) and with increased conservation efforts including a rise in rescue centres, stricter law enforcement and demand reduction campaigns-
the fight to save the pangolin is a race against time. The fate of this scaly sentinel is a test of how much we value our ecosystems, and of the will of the world to preserve its biodiversity.
Absolutely. For more detailed information on pangolins, including their distinctive physiology and behavior as well as the larger global picture of conservation surrounding them, check out the stories below:
Deep Dive: The Biology and Behavior of Pangolins
Physical Adaptations & Diet:
Scales That Live: What makes them snake shaped Their scales, called scutes, are built of keratin and account for about 20% of their body mass. They are also rugged, protective layers. The pangolin’s main defense when threatened is to curl up into an impenetrable, scaly ball.
Super-Tongue: Their tongue is anchored into the chest, not inside the mouth, right up to the last rib. It may reach dimensions exceeding the length of their body (40 cm/16 in) when it is stretched out. It’s sticky and that allows it to penetrate deep into ant and termite nests.
Picky Eater: One pangolin can eat more than 70 million insects a year. They have no teeth. Instead, they eat small stones and sand (a phenomenon known as gastroliths), helping to break up insects in their muscular stomach.
Reproduction and Lifespan:
Reproduction and Offspring Reproduces slowly with one (pangopup) nearly every year, only twins being born occasionally. The length of gestation is species-dependent and lasts about 70-140 days.
Mother’s Love: The scales of the newborn are soft and will gradually harden over a few days. The pup is carried on the mother’s tail base (where it can suckle from her mammary glands) for several months and weaned at 3-4 months. This low reproductive is the reason why population rebound from poaching is so hard.
Ecological Role:
Pangolins are vital ecosystem engineers. Their foraging activity for termites and ants not only aerates the soil but also promotes decomposition and manages the pest population (termites and ants), which is good for agriculture and natural regeneration of vegetation.
Complexities of the Black Market & Conservation
The Scale of the Crisis:
More than one million pangolins have been trafficked worldwide in the past decade, according to CITES data – but the real number is likely to be far higher given that the trade is conducted covertly.
All eight species are included as “Vulnerable” to “Critically Endangered” on the IUCN Red List.
Trafficking Routes:
Source: Much of the pangolins intercepted illegally have their origin in Central and West Africa, but there have been significant flows found in Southeast Asia as well (scales sources) and scales and meat sources.
Transit: Important transit points are Nigeria, Vietnam, Laos and Singapore.
Destination: The main destination markets are China and Vietnam, for the scales (traditional medicine) and meat (luxury dining,) respectively.
Anti-Poaching & Monitoring: Use of camera traps and field patrols by the rangers. Dogs that can smell the scales are being brought to some important ports.
Preventing the demand: NGOs in Asia collaborate with traditional medicine practitioners to promote botanical substitutes and counter myths that prevail around pangolin scales.
Rescue & Rehab: Wildlife rescue centers specializing in pangolins (such as Save Vietnam’s Wildlife and the Tikki Hywood Trust in Zimbabwe) work to rehabilitate confiscated animals –and then release them back into the wild, a difficult, expensive endeavor.
Community Involvement: Effective programs engage local communities as stewards, giving them financial incentives (such as beekeeping or ecotourism) to protect pangolins alive instead of poaching them.
NEW & EMERGING AND HOPE FOR OUR FUTURE
COVID-19 Connection: Although not conclusively identified as an intermediary host, pangolins were found to carry a coronavirus related to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This brought to the fore wildlife trade’s threats to public health, spurring China to upgrade its legal protections for pangolins and take scales off its official traditional medicine pharmacopoeia — a big, if not completely implemented, policy change.
GENETIC STUDIES: Researchers are analyzing DNA of confiscated scale shipments to track where it came from geographically, and thus pinpoint poaching hotspots as well as disrupt trafficking networks.
Worldwide Awareness: Previously virtually unknown, the pangolin has become a worldwide face of the wildlife trafficking epidemic with focused campaigns around World Pangolin Day (third Saturday in February).