230 EDENTATES. 
the white under-parts. The short-tailed pangolin (ML. temmincki) is readily 
distinguished by its short and blunt tail, in which the under surface of the tip 
lacks the bare patch found in all the other species except the next. The outer 
surfaces of the limbs are also fully scaled. The giant pangolin (I. gigantea) is 
sufficiently distinguished from the last by its superior size. It is remarkable that 
the remains of a closely-allied species have been found in a cavern in Madras. The 
whole of the four African species inhabit the West Coast; but the short-tailed 
species also extends to South Africa and ranges across the Continent to Zanzibar 
and Southern Somaliland. 
The general habits of the African pangolins appear to be very 
similar to those of their Asiatic cousins. While, however, the long- 
tailed and the white-bellied pangolins are partially arboreal, the other two are purely 
terrestrial. Most of the observations as to their habits have, however, been made 
Habits. 







WHITE-BELLIED PANGOLIN. (From Guide to British Museum. } 
from captive specimens. In 1878, Mr. F. Holwood, in sending a young example of 
the short-tailed pangolin to the London Zoological Gardens, wrote as follows to the 
secretary. These pangolins “ always appeared to burrow in hard or stony ground, 
and I saw them always in the daytime. The mother of the specimen I sent you 
lived three months in Zanzibar. She only fed at night, and remained curled up in 
a ball all day. She regularly retired to the dark corner of my harness-room at 
daylight, and left for the garden at sunset. There were very few ants, but she 
seemed to get plenty of insects. She burrowed at intervals all round the garden 
walls, but this was evidently only trying to escape, as she never made a hole large 
enough to give cover.” Although the scales of this young pangolin were quite 
soft at birth, they had completely hardened by the second day. Mr. L. Fraser 
relates how his pangolins would climb the somewhat roughly-hewn square posts, 
which supported a building, and sometimes roll up into a ball and throw themselves 
down, apparently without suffering any inconvenience from the fall. 
