Pangolin _ Amazing/Astounding.

20 percent of pangolins’ body weight is their scales that are made of keratin, the same element with human finger nails.
Pangolin can dig in the ground, swim and swings from tree by its tail.
Chinese pangolins have ears that look almost human while African pangolins look like mini T-Rexes when they toddling on their back legs. Their maximum speed is up to three miles per hours when they use their long tail for support and run by their two back legs.


Pangolins are perfect tools for self-defense. Pangolins can roll up into a ball when endangered and use their sharp scales to lash out. Also, they have scent glands similar to those of the skunk which they can use to spray enemies.
Pangolins are one of the oddest mammals. Pangolins are ancient creatures and the earliest fossils of the Cape Pangolin species itself date back 40 million years. These pangolins play vital roles in many tropical and subtropical ecosystems but most people don’t know their existence.

Pangolins were so common perhaps a decade ago. In some parts of Indonesia, pangolins could literally hit by cars. It’s unbelievable that none of the pangolins died on impact and that might never happens again.
Minimum each year there are 10,000 pangolins are trafficked illegally. And up to 116.990 to 23,980 pangolins were traded in two years (according to Annamitucus, an advocacy group).
Some people said pangolin tasted like chicken; and reason they eta pangolin because pangolin is rare and expensive. In Vietnam, the price of pangolin is $350 per kilo (~2.2 pounds) but the pangolin-hunters (not only in Vietnam) only get paid under $30 per kilo.
No one can know how many pangolins still live in the wild and the pangolin could disappear forever before everyone realizes it exists.
Let’s race to save the pangolin.

Source:
Stuart White, “Animal trade down,” Phnom Penh Post, November 27, 2013.
Ella Davies, “‘Shocking’ scale of pangolin smuggling revealed,” BBC Nature News, March 14, 2014.

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