Pangolins: Defense Mechanisms

Summary: How do pangolins defend themselves from predators? They actually have five different strategies. Join Kiersten as she talks about her fifth favorite thing about pangolins.

 

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

 

Show Notes:

animaldiversity.org

bioweb.uwlax.edu

iucn.org

www.savepangolins.org

The Encyclopedia of Mammals edited by Dr. David Macdonald

Pangolin Conservation Organizations: 

Rare and Endangered Species Trust - www.restnamibia.org

Save Vietnam’s Wildlife - www.svw.vn

 

Transcript

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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 fifth favorite thing about pangolins is how they protect themselves! 

 

The pangolin’s main defense is the thing that they are most well known for, their scales. They are covered from snout to tail in hard, thick scales made of keratin. These precious animals are often referred to as the scaly anteater and for a more visually amusing nickname, walking artichokes. The scales have an overlapping patten on body that resembles a suit of armor and hides all of their soft skin on their back and legs. Their scales are a pretty good defense against anything that might want to eat them, as well as protecting them from what they eat, ants. For a more in depth discussion of pangolin scales, please listen to the first episode in this series. 

 

Scales are the first layer of defense,  but next steps will depend on the species of pangolin which is further dependent on whether it is a ground pangolin or a tree pangolin. 

 

Ground pangolins dig burrows to sleep in and to raise their young. As they forage for food they can wander far from their burrows, but if they are close enough to them when threatened they will try to flee to their burrow to escape predators, such as lions and hyenas in Africa, and large cats such as leopards in the Asian areas.  Tree pangolins, if on the ground, will quickly head to the nearest tree. If they encounter a predator in a tree, they will climb down just as quickly or scurry out to the far reaches of a branch where a predator cannot go. They have been known to swim into water to flee from predators that will not follow them there. Pangolins are great swimmers.

 

If ground pangolins, including the Giant pangolin and the Cape ground pangolin, cannot get to their burrow they will use their tail like a club and swing it back and forth. The edges of the scales on their tails are sharp. The sharpness derives from the design of the scale, it tapers to a thinner width toward the end of the scale and the scales are also honed to a sharpness by rubbing against the rough ground and rocks similar to sharpening a knife on a whetstone. The pangolins are able to raise the scales on their tails slightly and combined with a slashing motion can be extremely deadly to a predator. Imagine an ancient Mayan club-like weapon with blades made out of sharpened obsidian on the sides. swinging this into an enemy could leave quit a wound. That’s what pangolins can do with their tail.

 

Tree pangolin scales are also sharp but I have found no reports of them using their tails in this manner.  That doesn’t mean that they don’t, it just means we haven’t seen them do it.

 

The next defensive step that pangolins will take is something that all pangolins do and that is curl up in a ball. And when I say ball, I mean a ball. When they curl up they are perfectly round. 

 

Now, It doesn’t help them get away from a predator that is trying to eat them but it does protect all of their soft body parts. The scales that are their first layer of defense do not cover the end of the nose or eyes nor do they cover the underbelly. In fact, their underbelly is only covered with fur and can be a vulnerable spot if a predator can get their claws or teeth on it. So when a pangolin curls up, their outer scales completely cover their delicate nose and soft underbelly. Their long tail actually wraps over their nose and head and flattens down their back essentially locking in place. A rolled up pangolin looks a bit like a perfectly round spiral.

 

The abdominal muscles of the pangolin are extremely strong and can be held taught making it virtually impossible to uncurl them against their will. If a predator tries to unfurl a pangolin, they will cut their paw or mouth on the sharp edges of their scales. Pangolins can hold the ball for some time, not indefinitely but usually long enough that a predator looking for an easy meal will tire and leave them be. 

 

In Africa, scientists and filmmakers have seen prides of lions actually give up trying to get into a curled up pangolin. The lions will bat it around to try and make it uncurl, pick it up in their mouths, which usually doesn’t work out because the scales are pretty slick, and try to bite through the scales, which also doesn’t work because the scale are too thick. The lions eventually just walk away and leave the pangolin alone and after a few minutes the pangolin unfurls and goes on his or her way unharmed.

 

Believe it or not there is one last layer of defense the pangolin can use if a predator is able to pick them up. They have scent glands at the base of their tails they use for communication with other pangolins. When they are threatened they can spray a noxious liquid from their scent glands that will hopefully make the predator think twice about continuing to bother the pangolin.

 

Now who exactly are pangolins protecting themselves from. Who are their predators? As I mentioned before, in Africa pangolins need to worry about lions, hyenas, the smaller tree pangolins must all watch out of African Golden cats.  The Asian species must beware of leopards and pythons. The Giant ground pangolin found in Africa has no natural predators.

 

There is one other predator that pangolins must be aware of including the Giant Ground pangolin, but, reluctantly, none of these defensive mechanisms protect them from this predator. Humans. 

 

Pangolins have become the most trafficked animal on the black market. Illegal hunting of them happens everywhere they are found. Traditional Chinese medicine uses their scales in various remedies, such as curing lactation difficulties in women and treating arthritis, but there is no evidence that these remedies actually work and there are far better and easier remedies that do not use animal parts as treatment that have proven results. Their meat is also considered a delicacy by the ultra rich in China and Vietnam. All eight species of pangolin are considered Endangered or Vulnerable by the IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature which is widely considered the global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to protect it. None of the pangolin’s defense mechanisms protect them from us. 

 

I hope you enjoyed learning about the five defense mechanisms that pangolins use to survive because this is my fifth 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.