The Sunda pangolin (''Manis javanica''), also known as the Malayan or Javan pangolin, is a species of

pangolin Pangolins, sometimes known as scaly anteaters, are mammals of the order Pholidota (, from Ancient Greek ϕολιδωτός – "clad in scales"). The one extant family, the Manidae, has three genera: '' Manis'', ''Phataginus'', and '' Smuts ...

. It is found throughout

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...

, including Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, and the islands of Borneo, Java, Sumatra and the

Lesser Sunda Islands The Lesser Sunda Islands or nowadays known as Nusa Tenggara Islands ( id, Kepulauan Nusa Tenggara, formerly ) are an archipelago in Maritime Southeast Asia, north of Australia. Together with the Greater Sunda Islands to the west they make up ...

. It prefers forested habitats (primary, secondary, and scrub forest) and plantations (rubber,

palm oil Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of the oil palms. The oil is used in food manufacturing, in beauty products, and as biofuel. Palm oil accounted for about 33% of global oils produced fr ...

). A large part of its life is spent in trees.

Taxonomy

In the past, this species has included the closely related

Palawan pangolin The Philippine pangolin or Palawan pangolin (''Manis culionensis''), also locally known as ''balintong'', is a pangolin species endemic to the Palawan province of the Philippines. Its habitat includes primary and secondary forests, as well as ...

(''M. culionensis''), as both are in the subgenus ''Paramanis''. It is closely related to the

Chinese pangolin The Chinese pangolin (''Manis pentadactyla'') is a pangolin native to the northern Indian subcontinent, northern parts of Southeast Asia and southern China. It has been listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2014, as the ...

, although the Malayan species is larger, lighter in colour, and has shorter fore claws.

Description

The skin of the Sunda pangolin's feet is granular, although pads are found on its front feet. It has thick and powerful claws to dig into the soils in search of ant nests or to tear into termite mounds. The Sunda pangolin has poor eyesight, but a highly developed sense of smell. Lacking teeth, its long, sticky tongue serves to collect ants and termites. Its body is covered by rows of scales and fibrous hair. The head-body length of this pangolin can measure 40–65 cm, tail length is 35–56 cm, and its weight is up to 10 kg. Males are larger than females.

Behaviour and ecology

Pangolins give birth annually to one or two offspring. They breed in the autumn, and females give birth in the winter burrow. Den preference has been known to shift at this time to favor mature forest tree hollows. Presumably, these hollows offer more fortification and stability for the decreased mobility that comes with birthing and caring for young. The amount of time the mother will spend at any one of these dens will increase during parental care periods. Parental care is given for about three months. In these three months, the range of the mother Pangolin drastically decreases as she travels and forages with her offspring. Only a few weeks before the offspring becomes fully independent, the mother and her young can display brief spikes in diurnal activity. Pangolins are sometimes found in pairs, but normally they are solitary, nocturnal, and behave timidly. They protect their soft underparts by rolling into balls when they feel threatened. They are strong diggers and make burrows lined with vegetation for insulation near termite mounds and ant nests. Sunda pangolins have low immunity, making them sensitive to fluctuations in temperature. The Sunda pangolin's main predators are humans,

tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living Felidae, cat species and a member of the genus ''Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily pr ...

s, and the

clouded leopard The clouded leopard (''Neofelis nebulosa''), also called the mainland clouded leopard, is a wild cat inhabiting dense forests from the foothills of the Himalayas through mainland Southeast Asia into South China. In the early 19th century, a ...

Conservation

Pangolins as a family are among the most heavily poached and exploited protected animals. Like other pangolin species, the Sunda pangolin is hunted for its skin, scales, and meat, used in clothing manufacture and traditional medicine. Scales are made into rings as charms against rheumatic fever, and meat is eaten by indigenous peoples. Despite enjoying protected status almost everywhere in its range, illegal international trade, largely driven by Chinese buyers, has led to rapidly decreasing population numbers. The Sunda pangolin is currently considered to be critically endangered. As of 2016, all pangolin species are listed on

CITES Appendix I CITES (shorter name for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of intern ...

, which prohibits commercial international trade of wild-caught specimens or their body parts. China raised the protection status of all pangolin species to the highest level in 2020.

Health

A metagenomic study published in 2019 previously revealed that SARS-CoV, the strain of the virus that causes

SARS Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory disease of zoonotic origin caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-1), the first identified strain of the SARS coronavirus species, ''seve ...

, was the most widely distributed coronavirus among a sample of Sunda pangolins. On 7 February 2020, it was announced that researchers from

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, sou ...

had discovered a

sample with a viral nucleic acid sequence "99% identical" to SARS-CoV-2. When released, the results clarified that "the receptor-binding domain of the S protein of the newly discovered Pangolin-CoV is virtually identical to that of 2019-nCoV, with one

amino acid Amino acids are organic compounds that contain both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. Although hundreds of amino acids exist in nature, by far the most important are the alpha-amino acids, which comprise proteins. Only 22 alpha ...

difference." Pangolins are protected under Chinese law, but their poaching and trading for use in

traditional Chinese medicine Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. It has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience", with the majority of its treatments having no logical mechanism of acti ...

remains common. Pangolin coronaviruses found to date only share at most 92% of their whole genomes with SARS-CoV-2, making them less similar than RaTG13 to SARS-CoV-2. This is insufficient to prove pangolins to be the intermediate host; in comparison, the SARS virus responsible for the 2002–2004 outbreak shared 99.8% of its genome with a known civet coronavirus.

References

External links

* Sunda pangolin at Ecology Asi

Sunda pangolin at Animal Diversity Web

WWF & TRAFFIC Report: Pangolin trade in Sabah (PDF)

WWF News: Seized notebooks give unique insight into scale of illicit pangolin trade
{{Use dmy dates, date=May 2020 Manis Mammals of Southeast Asia Myrmecophagous mammals Mammals of Borneo Mammals of Brunei Mammals of Cambodia Mammals of China Mammals of Indonesia Mammals of Laos Mammals of Malaysia Mammals of Myanmar Mammals of Singapore Mammals of Thailand Mammals of Vietnam Mammals described in 1822 Critically endangered fauna of Asia