ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 

 BULLETIN 



Published by the New York Zoological Society 



Vol. XVII 



SEPTEMBER, 1911 



Number 5 



THE PANGOLIN OK SCALY ANTEATKR 



Bi/ C. William Beebe, 

 Curator of Birds. 



HIDDEN deep below the surface of tlie 

 ground beneath the dry plains of central 

 and southern Africa and the humid 

 jungles of India. Burma and the great East 

 Indian Islands, are tliousands of great reptile- 

 like creatures, some a full six feet in length. 

 covered from nose to tail-tip with a complete 

 armature of scales; lizards in .ippearance ; 

 mammals in truth; orphans in classification. 

 The Malay's call tliem Tanjiling. which English 

 tongues have twisted to Pangolin. Under his 

 armor of scales the Pangolin or Scaly Ant- 

 eater conceals a bodily structure as confusing 

 to the scientist as is his general appearance 

 to the layman. In common with other tooth- 

 less or nearly toothless devourers of ants the 

 Pangolin has usually been classed with arma- 

 dillos and hairy anteaters. But his structure 

 is so peculiarly Pangolin, his resemblances to 

 other living creatures so slight, and the absence 

 of fossil relatives so complete, that he has 

 finally been assigned to an order of his own. 

 Pholidota or the assemblage of scalv ones. 



Throughout the days of violent sunshine or 

 of tropical downpours, not one of the hosts of 

 Pangolins ever shows himself ; but in the dusk 

 of evening the round, shingled ball stirs in its 

 underground chamber, unrolls, stretches and the 

 earth gives up its race of scaly anteaters. They 

 come forth timidly, hesitating long at the en- 

 trance of the burrow before daring to shuffle 

 forth on their quest for food. 



The first time I caught sight of a Pangolin 

 in Borneo I realized that it was one of Na- 

 ture's later efforts. Although its form and 

 scales were suggestive of some strange lizard, 

 vet this is onlv a secondarv resemblance. The 



lielniet of the deep-sea diver recalls the helm 

 of the medieval Knight ; yet one is intended as 

 a protection against a yielding liquid, the other 

 to withstand blows of metal. In the embryo 

 Pangolin the scales are little more than a mass 

 of felted hairs, which harden after birth. 



The world of night into which the Pangolin 

 enters, is a world of conflict and fear; there 

 is food in abundance, fruit, berries, mice, 

 sleeping birds at hand, or there are hosts of 

 creatures to be overcome and devoured only 

 after a conflict. But the scaly one asks noth- 

 ing of these. Peace to go his way, a jjopulous 

 ant-hill and a burrow to which to return — this 

 plumbs the depths of a Pangolin's desire. His 

 armor is for defense alone, his muscles impel 

 no offensive blows, his powerful claws are 

 sheathed, being only the implements of trade, 

 the picks of a sapper and miner. 



Mv Pangolin was dug up with the help of 

 an obliging Tamil trailmender, the last heave 

 of the shovel rolling him out upon the forest 

 floor as inanimate as a glacier-worn boulder in 

 a New England field, or like some gigantic, 

 malformed pine cone. There was absolutely 

 no vulnerable point of attack. A rounded 

 back dwindled gradually into a long tapering 

 tail, with part of a liind leg to fill up every in- 

 tervening crevice. The tail muscles were as 

 rigid as steel. Even with the spade as lever- 

 age, hardly an inch could be pried free. From 

 the jaws of a leopard the scales would have 

 slipped harmlessly away. 



Left quiet for five minutes, the only signs 

 of life were the lifting of some of the leaf-like 

 scales of the hip. One imagined that there might 



