﻿94 The Philippine Journal of Science m* 



plied the food of the animal. I accordingly secured several of 

 these arboreal termite nests, and placed them in the cage with the 

 animal. The pangolin commenced to break open a nest shortly 

 after dark. Its method of accomplishing this is very peculiar. 

 First, it is necessary to give some idea of the characters of the 

 nest in order better to understand how well the animal is adapted 

 to its food supply. 



The termite nests are usually subglobose, sometimes being 

 rather irregular in shape, and from 20 centimeters to 50 centi- 

 meters in diameter. In color they are usually dark brown or 

 black, and externally have a rather flaky appearance. The outer- 

 most part of the nest is rather thin, and is brittle in texture. 

 The entire interior of the nest is made up of a somewhat porous 

 material that is more or less sponge-like in appearance, but not 

 at all sponge-like in texture, being very hard and somewhat 

 brittle. In the region where the queen chamber is located, the 

 surrounding material is still harder, and the passages or cells are 

 slightly smaller than in the external portions. 



In opening the nest the pangolin at first removes the outer 

 layer from one side by means of its powerful claws. The animal 

 then commences working its way into the interior of the nest 

 by inserting its claws into the passages or cells and using them 

 as levers, thus breaking away, in small pieces, the very hard 

 material that makes up the interior of the nest. While doing 

 this work, the animal may assume any position — standing on 

 its hind legs or lying down on its side, on its belly, or even on its 

 back on the top or on the sides of the nest — depending on the 

 location of the nest. As soon as it has worked a short distance 

 into the interior, it reaches the regions inhabited by the termites, 

 and, while busily engaged with its claws in breaking down the 

 interior of the nest, it keeps its tongue constantly protruded, 

 licking up the termites - that are disturbed or dislodged, in its 

 efforts to reach the interior of the nest. In this manner, the 

 pangolin hollows out the nest sometimes to such a degree that 

 only a thin crust or shell about 3 centimeters in thicknesses left. 

 If the nest be very large, it is generally more or less broken up ; 

 small nests are rarely broken, but retain their original shape after 

 being hollowed out completely (Plate I). The pangolin under 

 observation consumed the contents of as many as four medium- 

 sized nests in one night. Very probably during the dry season, 

 the Palawan pangolin lives mostly on these arboreal termites. 

 In Palawan, the terrestrial termite nests or mounds are mostly 

 found in rather open brush or grass lands and are so hard that 

 the animal could not burrow into them during the dry season. 



