2o6 



ED E NT A TA 



as an organ of touch. There are three species, viz. Manis javanica, 

 ranging from Burma, through Malacca and Java, to Borneo ; 31. 

 aurita,ioxmd in China, Formosa, and Nipal ; and the common Indian 

 Pangolin, 31. pentadactyla, distributed over the whole of India and 

 Ceylon. The African species have the central series of scales 

 suddenly interrupted and breaking into two at a point about 2 or 3 

 inches from the tip of the tail ; they have no hair between the 

 scales, and no external ear-conch. The following are the four species 



belonging to this 



7 



group : — the 

 Long-tailed Pan- 

 golin (71/. mac- 

 rura), which has 

 a tail nearly twice 

 as long as its 

 body, and con- 

 taining as many 

 as forty -nine 

 caudal vertebrae, 

 being the largest 

 number known 

 among mammals ; 

 the White-bellied 

 Pangolin (31. tri- 

 cuspis), Fig. 70, 

 closely allied to 

 the last, but with 

 longer and tri- 

 cuspid scales, and 

 white belly hairs. 

 These two, like 

 the Indian species, have a naked spot beneath the tail tip, a char- 

 acter probably correlated with the power of climbing, and they 

 are, moreover, peculiar in having the outer sides of their fore legs 

 clothed with hair, all the other species being scaly there as else- 

 where. Lastly, the Short -tailed and the Giant Pangolins (31. 

 temmincki and gigantea), both of which have their tails covered 

 entirely with scales, and evidently never take to arboreal habits. 

 All the four species of the second group are found in the West 

 African region, one only, 31. temmincki, extending also into south 

 and eastern equatorial Africa. 



According to Professor W. K. Parker, 1 who remarks upon the 

 peculiarly aberrant nature of the group, the horny scales of the 

 Pangolins really consist of cemented hairs. This writer states that 

 " in the early embryo lozenge-shaped tracts of skin are seen all over 



1 Mammalian Descent, p. 95. 



Fig. 70. — The White-bellied Pangolin (Manis tricuspis). 



