by Anna Tinker
I’ve seen the ‘Big 5′. That’s easy. I’ve seen some of Africa’s most fantastic nocturnal creatures too. The wildlife I’m privileged to see never fails to amaze me, from everyday impalas to things obscure and quirky, like Golden Moles and Giant Land Snails. Each is unforgettable and life-changing. But the geeky checklist I secretly keep is missing something. An animal so impossibly cool that if I do see one, I may just retire and die happy… or spend 20 years searching for the next one.
Pangolin. (I can’t even type the word without getting all goosebumpy.)
How can I even begin to describe a pangolin? Well, imagine a big, long pinecone wandering about on the African savanna, on its hind legs. It’s a mammal, and certainly the only one to have scales. It walks on its hind legs because its front nails (adapted for digging) are too long, an inconvenience best understood by ladies whose long, manicured nails render their hands entirely useless for day-to-day use.
When a pangolin feels a little uneasy, it bunches itself into a tight ball, tucking its head and feet inside an impenetrable wall of razor-sharp scales. Perhaps it wrongly believes that if it can’t see you, then you can’t see it. More likely though, it is using its very best survival strategy: confusion.
Because what do you do if you’re a lion and you come across a pangolin? Poke at it? Roll it around a little? Push it down a sand dune to see if it cracks? It seems that pangolins make their way by simply being confusing. Confusing things are generally unappetising. It’s like facing a plate of blue pancakes. You could… but you probably wouldn’t. And remember when they tried to introduce green ketchup? Same thing.
Lion and Pangolin (image by Kibuyu)
The pangolin feeds on ants and termites and hunts by night. It has an epic long tongue, capable of probing unexpectedly up to 16 inches into an ant hole or termite mound. It’s also sticky, like fly paper, so best of luck escaping it. But ants? Termites? Really? I feel that one of Earth’s most elusive animals should be a little more eccentric in its tastes.
So is the pangolin’s survival tactic (eat ants, avoid daylight, be confusing) working? Sadly, it would appear not. While the IUCN currently lists southern Africa’s pangolin as “least concern”, its population is decreasing, and several of Asia’s pangolin species are already endangered.
The pangolin’s wacky scales are made from keratin, but are used by humans as love charms and medicine. Try biting your nails? It’ll have the same effect. And there’s at least one case of an entire coat of armour being made from pangolin scales. I can assure you they look better on the pangolin. When they aren’t being worn, pangolins are also eaten. The bushmeat trade in Africa is cited as one of the pangolin’s biggest threats.
Pangolins, NHM London (by Anna Tinker)
Will I ever have my chance to see this vanishing species? There are game reserves that will almost guarantee a leopard sighting, but no where in the world you can go and expect to see a pangolin in the wild. They’re seen entirely on their own terms, and while that keeps them away from me, it draws me to them all the more.
Have you been lucky enough to see a pangolin? Please share your stories and photos with us!
The southern African pangolin, Temminck’s Ground Pangolin (Smutsia temminckii)
is on the IUCN Red List for Threatened Species as “least concern”.
Population trend: decreasing
There are 7 other species of pangolin, scattered throughout Asia and Africa.
All are included on the IUCN Red List, ranging from
“least concern” to “near threatened” and “endangered“.
The population trend for every species of pangolin is decreasing.
(Photo of pangolin and lion by Kibuyu, used under a Creative Commons licence)
