Environmental Biology 12-13: PA Ecology VII

I like to use different distributions of Linux on my computer, especially Ubuntu. The different releases are named after animals, and one of the more recent ones was Precise Pangolin. Pangolins are also known as scaly anteaters, due to the extremely hard plates that armor their bodies. They live in southern Africa as well as across the Indian subcontinent and southeast Asia. Their Latin genus is Manis, and there are eight species that exist today, each with their own little adaptations. Pangolin comes from the Malay word for 'something that rolls up,' pengguling.

Pangolins are the only mammal to have a plated armor system. The individual plates are made of keratin and shift over one another when the pangolin is moving. When they feel threatened they roll up into a ball with the scales overlapping to form a protective sphere. The scales are so hard that not even a lion can bite through the plates. Pangolin species range from thirty to one hundred centimeters in length, with the females being slightly smaller than the males. They are called scaly anteaters because of how they feed. They have no teeth, so they use their extremely long prehensile tongue to pull ants out of anthills for food. Some pangolins can extend their tongues up to forty centimeters, snaking it through the ground in search of food.

Pangolins in Africa give birth to one young at a time, several times per year. Whereas the Asiatic pangolins give birth at the same rate, but between one and three young at a time. Several species of pangolins live in hollowed out trees, but most live in underground burrows depending on what their prey are. Pangolins are mostly nocturnal, doing their hunting at night, and during the day staying curled up in a ball to sleep. Fun fact, pangolins are very good swimmers.

Pangolins are a threatened mammal, with most Asiatic species facing large amounts of poaching. Many Asian cultures believe the scales have healing properties, with the meat also curing cancer and other diseases. As well as hunting, deforestation has greatly reduced their habitat, resulting in many species already having gone extinct.

Pangolins are one of the most interesting animals on planet earth, but sadly due to superstition and industrialization they are beginning to disappear. Within my life there will be a time when many species are gone from the earth, and sadly the pangolin will most likely be one of them.