Obsession for its supposedly medicinal scales in China is believed to have made the Chinese Pangolin, one of two species found in South Asia, extinct in India.
Pangolins:
Pangolins or scaly anteaters are mammals of the order Pholidota.
The eight species: There are a total of eight pangolin species across Africa and Asia.
Asian species: Sunda Pangolin, Philippine Pangolin, Chinese Pangolin and ‘Indian Pangolin’.
African species: Long-tailed Pangolin, Tree Pangolin, Giant Pangolin and the Ground Pangolin.
Characterstics:
They have large, protective keratin scales covering their skin, and they are the only known mammals with this feature.
They roll into a ball when threatened which can make them easy pickings for poachers.
Their diet consists of mainly ants and termites which they capture using their long tongues (A pangolin’s tongue is longer than its body). It can consume 70 million ants a year.
Pangolins have no teeth; they chew with gravel and keratinous spines inside the stomach.
Threat:
According to the latest report released by TRAFFIC in March 2018, Pangolin is the most trafficked mammal in the world.
Though hunted for its meat across the northeastern States and in central India, the demand for its scales in China has made it the most critically endangered animal in less than a decade.
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