Temmnick's Pangolin

Quick Facts

Name: Temminck’s Pangolin

Diet: Ants and Termites

Behaviour: Nocturnal and Solitary

Lifespan: Unknown in the wild and up to 20 years in captivity

Size: 1.4m in length with almost half of that being tail, about 9-10kg in weight

Habitat/Range: Woodlands and savannahs of Eastern and Southern Africa

Threats: Illegal wildlife trade, road accidents, electric fences & habitat loss

Conservation Status: Vulnerable

Love Language: Pangolins are pretty elusive and, for the most part, very solitary, so little is known about the language of pango-love. It's thought that a male Temminck’s pangolin will pick up on a scent trail left by a female while she forages – that's their cue. The male will follow excitedly, and if the female is receptive to his advances, he'll mount her from the side and head back to hers. They stay together for up to three days, presumably doing what lovers do best...

If you see them: All eight pangolin species are protected at the highest level of international conservation law, so if you ever see any pangolin products, make sure to report it to the relevant authorities! If you're in the much luckier position to see a live pangolin, enjoy the sight of such a unique creature, but leave them be as they are quite shy. And please don’t share the location of where you saw it, as this could put an unfortunate target on its armoured back.

Red Flags: Illegal wildlife trade is the ultimate no-no. Pangolins are captured and killed in extraordinary numbers to be sold as bushmeat and, most often, for their scales to be used in traditional Chinese medicine, despite being made of the same thing as human fingernails. Other threats include road accidents, electric fences, and habitat loss.

Favourite Hangout: Temminck’s pangolins are ground dwellers; they prefer life on the floor to some of their high-flying, tree-loving cousins. Temminck's are found in Southern and Eastern Africa and are the only Pangolin species in these parts of Africa, so it would be pretty unlikely for them to bump into any of their pango cousins. They like a nice woodland or savannah, ideally close to a water source and with plenty of scrubby bushes.

Favourite Snack: ANTS. Pangolins such as the Temminck’s follow a strict Myrmecophagy diet, meaning they almost exclusively eat ants and termites. Whilst Temminck's wouldn't say no to the occasional termite, 90-95% of their diet is made of ants, and in fact, they tend to stick only to a few select types of these little critters.

Eating Habits: Once a Temminck’s pangolin has located a nice juicy ant nest, it can put its highly specialised ant-eating machine into action, AKA its tongue. All pangolins have an incredibly long (up to 40cm), thin, and sticky tongue that they can use to lap up ants and termites in enormous numbers, up to 70 million in a year!

Toilet Humour: Pangolins have no teeth! But they do have sand and stones. They eat these to help grind up all the ants and termites (around 20,000 a day) they slurp. Natural gnashers.

Names & Nicknames: Temminck’s Pangolin, Ground pangolin, Cape pangolin, Steppe pangolin

Size: The second largest pangolin behind the aptly named Giant pangolin. Temminck's reach up to around 1.4 metres in length and 10kg in weight, that's as much as a Dachshund! 40% of that is its armoured tail, however.

Smell: Pangolins don’t have the best hearing or sight, but they have an incredible sense of smell. They use their snouts to track down their six-legged ant and termite prey. They also use smell as a defence, releasing a potent odour from glands near their butt to mark their territories and deter predators, kind of like an armoured skunk.

Communication: Pangolins are solitary, meaning they aren't massive chit-chatters. Instead, they communicate with smells, leaving scents to help locate a mate or, more often, telling other pangolins to keep their armoured behinds out of their territories.

Glow-up: A female will give birth to a single pup, or very rarely twins, in her burrow, where it will stay for the first month, except when the female occasionally moves burrows, carrying her pup on her tail when she does so. Once the pup is a bit bigger it will start to join its mother as she forages, learning from the master, and occasionally piggybacking when it gets tired. After around three months, it's independent streak develops. It'll leave the mother, occasionally meeting up and joining its father for a month, but usually, it is time to make its mark on the world.

Facts: Pangolin comes from penggulung, a Malay word meaning ‘roller’. They've been crowned this because they love to roll into a ball when threatened; that way, their soft lil' bellies are protected by armour-like scales. No tummy rubs here.

Who are they in the friendship group: A super picky eater who loves a late-night snack.

How threatened are they: Vulnerable