Animal of the Week February 15 -- What the pangolin?!

How the hell have I been on AOTW for almost 10 years without once having a species of pangolin as feature?

It's World Pangolin Day, so I am going to make amends, and animal of the week is (picked somewhat at random from the eight extant species of pangolin) Manis gigantea (giant pangolin).

Known as scaly anteaters, pangolins do superficially resemble the bastard child of an anteater and pine cone, but
they are closely related to neither. In the tree of mammalian life, pangolins are somewhat out on a limb. They are most closely related to carnivores (cats, dogs, seals, weasels, etc), but have been on their own evolutionary path since the demise of the dinosaurs or thereabouts.

Pangolins, like anteaters, lack teeth, have cylindrical legs with strong claws, and have very long sticky tongues designed to extract ants and termites from their mounds. But this similarity is convergent evolution—it's one of the best ways to get at an abundant food source, so evolution has shaped several animals that way. When threatened by predators, pangolins curl up into a ball, protecting their heads and soft undersides with their hard scales.

The largest of all the pangolins, giant pangolins can weigh in excess of 30 kg and reach almost a metre and a half in length. Giant pangolins live from west Africa, through the Congo, to Uganda.

Some people hunt giant pangolins for bushmeat, and with habitat destruction, their numbers are in decline. Although the African pangolins fare slightly better than their Asian cousins. Their scales are highly prized in Chinese medicine and in parts of southeast Asia their flesh is considered a delicacy. The Asian pangolins are in a rapid decline, are some of the most trafficked animals, and may be destined for extinction before long. And as with the rhinos, also hunted to the brink for Asian medicine and ornament markets, once the Asian species go, traders will turn to Africa.