Friday 1 March 2019

Pangolins: Rare insight into world's most trafficked mammal


By Helen Briggs BBC News, Science and Environment
13 February 2019
The secret life of the world's most trafficked mammal, the pangolin, has been caught on camera in Africa.
Footage gives a rare insight into the behaviour of the giant pangolin, the largest of all the scaly animals.
Observed by remote-operated cameras, a baby takes a ride on its mother's back, while an adult climbs a tree.
Scientists are releasing the footage to highlight the plight of the animals, which are being pushed to extinction by illegal hunting for scales and meat.
Large numbers of their scales have been seized this month alone, including Malaysia's biggest-ever interception of smuggled pangolin products.
The images and video clips of giant pangolins, one of four species in Africa, were taken at Uganda's Ziwa sanctuary, where the animals live alongside protected rhinos and are safe from poaching.
Stuart Nixon of Chester Zoo's Africa Field Programme said much of their behaviour has never been recorded before.
"We know so little about this species, almost everything we're picking up on camera traps this year as a behaviour is a new thing," he told BBC News.


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