Ten Things I Like About Pangolins: Reproduction

Summary: Baby pangolins! Join Kiersten for a quick discussion of pangolin reproduction.

 

For my hearing impaired listeners, a transcript of this podcast follows the show notes.

 

Show Notes:

animaldiversity.org

bioweb.uwlax.edu

“Reproductive Parameters of the Sunda pangolin, Manis javanica.” Fuhua Zhang, Shibao Wu, Li Yang, Li Zhang, Ruing Sun, Shaoshan Li. Folia Zoologica, 4(2): 129-135 (2015). https://doi.org/10.25225/fozo.v64.i2.a6.2015

“Successful captive breeding of a Malayan pangolin population to the third filial generation.” Dingy Yan, Xiangfan Zeng, Miaomiao Jia, Xiaobing Guo, Siwei Deng, Li Tao, Xiaolu Huang, Baocai Li, Chang Huang, Tengcheng Que, Kaixiang Li, Wendi Liang, Yao Zhao, Xingxing Liang, Yating Zhong, Sara Platto and Siew Woh Choo. Communications Biology 4, 1212 (2021). Https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-02760-4

Pangolin Conservation Organizations: 

Rare and Endangered Species Trust - www.restnamibia.org

Save Vietnam’s Wildlife - www.svw.vn

 

Transcript

(Piano music plays)

Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.

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Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… This is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 

 

This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.

 

This episode continues pangolins and my fourth favorite thing about pangolins is baby pangolins! So, let’s talk reproduction. 

 

Much of the information that follows is based on pangolins in rehabilitation facilities that have had success in keeping pangolins alive in captivity and healthy enough to breed. Whether this information evolves as more studies are done with pangolins in the wild, we’ll have to wait and see, but for now we’ll talk about what we have learned so far.

 

From reports of behaviors observed in the wild, pangolins are solitary animals, most information indicates that they live separate lives with males and females encountering each other only during breeding season. Many solitary animals have territories that they roam and defend. This is also true of pangolins. Male territories will often overlap with females so they are near each other during breeding season. Pangolins will communicate territory boundaries with scent marking and this is also how females advertise when the are in estrus, which means they are ready to mate. This is also how they avoid each other outside of mating season. If they smell the scent of another individual they can alter their path to successfully avoid the other pangolin.

 

Mating season seems to vary greatly between species and may be dependent on the habitat in which they live and the availability of food within that habitat. The Indian pangolin, which lives in a semi-barren desert region, appears to have a breeding season between July and October. Males have been seen fighting for female attention. The winner of the fight gets the girl. The mating period seems to last 3-5 days during which the male will stay in the same burrow with the female. This deviates strongly from the solitary day to day life of the pangolin outside of breeding season and only a few reports of this behavior exists in one species of pangolin, so this may not be typical of all individuals or species.

 

The Chinese pangolin’s mating season appears to occur fromlat autumn to early spring. Not much else in known about this pangolins mating habits. 

 

African Tree pangolins that favor tropical forests throughout  Central Africa are believed to reproduce at any time of the year. Just like the Chinese pangolin, very little is known about their mating habits.

 

The African Ground pangolin’s breeding season occurs from May to July which is the dry season in the African regions they are found. Males compete with each other for the ability to mate with females. Males will mate with multiply females but we have no idea how many males a females choses to mate with. Not much is known about courtship behaviors but a few sources indicates that in the Ground pangolin males will fight each other using their claws and tails while a female watches and she will mate with the winner. 

 

In the Malayan, or Sunda pangolin, sparring between males has also been observed during the breeding season which may take place throughout the year. The long tailed pangolin, an African species found in tropical forests, may breed any time during the year.

 

We know very little about the reproductive habits of the Giant pangolin and the Philippine pangolin. Currently scientists are basing educated guesses about their behavior on similar pangolins such as the Ground pangolin and the Sunda pangolin.

 

Once breeding season has begun and the Male and Female have found each other, they will face each other, stand up on their hind feet and twine their tails together when ready to perform the physical act of mating. This behavior has only been described for one of the arboreal tree pangolins and may only reflect their behavior. Terrestrial pangolins may differ in behavior. 

 

After fertilization has occurred gestation of the fetus can range from 80-160 days depending on species. Once again these are based on reports of a few successful births in captivity and may not reflect true gestation periods. 

 

Some of you may wonder why I have cautioned twice about information gathered from captive individuals being uncharacteristic of wild populations. That is an excellent question. Through studies of wolves we have discovered that behavior in captivity is often not the same as behavior in the wild, and can even be greatly altered through the stress of captive living,. For decades we believed wolves had a strict hierarchical social structure based on dominance within their packs consisting of an alpha, beta, and an omega. Each wolf had a place somewhere within that dominance structure. We based everything we knew about wolves on this system until some scientists began filming wild packs of wolves and saw something completely different. In the wild, without the pressure and constraints of captive life, the wolves’ social structure was far more relaxed and flexible than we thought based on our studies of captive wolves so when studying captive animal behavior we must remember that it could be quite different from how the animal behaves in the wild.

 

Back to our pangolins…offspring, called pups or pangopups, are born small, approximately 6 inches long with a weight of 12 ounces, and with soft white scales. Typically females only bare one pup at time, but sightings of two pangopups have been reported by hunters. 

 

For about the first four weeks mother and baby will remain in their nest, typically a hollow in a tree or a burrow dug in the ground depending on the species of pangolin. The pup will nurse from two mammary glands that the female has. Within a few days the pup’s scales will harden and darken in color to match the adult color. After four weeks, the baby will venture out of the nest by holding onto the base of mom’s tail. This seems to be the preferred mode of transportation across all species pangolin and I encourage you to search the internet for a picture right now! Because it is one of the most adorable things you have ever seen.

 

The pangopup is capable of walking on their own by the time they venture out of the nest but this form of transportation may be a safe way for the pup to interact with the world. It’s a great way for the mother to keep tabs on her pup, as well. If the mother senses danger she will curl into a ball with her baby snuggled up inside next to her belly leaving only her tough outer scales exposed. 

 

When the pup first ventures into the world , he or she will still be drinking mother’s milk, but they will quickly begin to sample the ants and termites that mom is also eating. Pangopups seem to stay with their mother from four months to a year before venturing off on their own. Some sources say the pups remain with mom for up to two years but this in one of their behaviors that will require more research to determine. 

 

At the recording of this podcast there is only one documented successful breeding program of captive pangolins. This program only involved the Sunda pangolin. Pangolins confiscated by law enforcement from illegal poachers were housed in a facility in China, fed a specialized insect heavy diet, and were introduced to the opposite sex at the appropriate times during the year. This program was able to breed pangolins through three generations with the first generation being the confiscated individuals. This is the only time that captive born pangolins have lived long enough and been healthy enough grow to adulthood and reproduce themselves. Overall they were able to successfully breed 49 Sunda pangolins within 5 years. It’s a great step forward in pangolin conservation.

 

Pangopups are my fourth favorite thing about pangolins.

 

Please visit savepangolins.org to find out even more about pangolins and discover what you can do to save this unique animal. To help the African Cape Pangolin visit the Rare and Endangered Species Trust at restnamibia.org and to learn more about Asian pangolins and help the Sunda and Chinese pangolin visit Save Vietnam’s Wildlife at svw.vn. 

 

Join me next week for another ten minute podcast focusing on another thing I like about pangolins. 

 

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This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.