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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