Bill Smith, age 11, St. Catharine• for his question:
What is a pangolin?
The pangolin looks for all the world like a large pine cone. His long, tapering body is encased in horny, chestnut‑brown scales. Usually the scales are snugly overlapped in little triangles, all pointing neatly towards the back. Actually, they are a special formation of hairs, fused into tough plates. The head, sides, back, tail and the outsides of the pangolins dumpy legs are sheathed in this pine cone pattern of armor plating.
The name pangolin comes from a Malay word meaning to roll. Our scaly fellow does not always look like a pine cone. He can curl himself up in a neat little ball, head tucked in his paws and tail wrapped around him like a kitten. Sometimes he chooses to disarray his neat armor plating. When attacked, he stands his scaly little triangles on end. An enemy who sniffs at Mr. Pinecone is likely to get a prickly poke in the nose.
In the tropical forests of his native home, the pangolin is a great tree climber. His long claws are fine for gripping rough bark and his tail is fitted with little climbing hooks. It seems that Mr. Pinecone would rather climb up than climb down. For, when time comes to descend, he usually takes the quick, easy way. He just lets go and drops. For this trick, he rolls into a ball with scales standing on end. The up‑ended scales break the force of the fall.
The pangolin is classed as an anteater, along with several other animals who enjoy a diet of ants. However, he has no family ties with the giant anteaters or anteating armadillos of South and Central America. His family consists of seven cousins, all very closely related. They are at home in the tropical forests of Africa and Asia. There are pangolins in Ceylon, Burma, China, India, Formosa and the Sunda Islands and four of the cousins are native to Africa.
Though a good climber, the pangolinis not graceful on the ground. He seems to walk along on his knuckles. This is because he carries his long front claws hooked inwards and upwards. These claws must be kept in trim for meal time. Dinner begins when the scaly anteater smells out an ant’s nest. The front feet go to work, tearing away at the dirt and digging down to the treasure. Out comes a long, wormy tongue, lashing through the debris of the crumbling fortress.
The tongue is covered with sticky goo. Ants, eggs, larvae, sand, dirt and little pebbles are stuffed inside and swallowed whole. For the pangolin has no teeth. Once inside, the food and the debris is attacked by a most wonderful stomach. The walls are lined with hornet' folds and powerful muscles work to grind the mixture to a pulp ‑ this includes the dirt, the sand and few pea‑sized pebbles. At least one variety of scaly anteater has little grinding prongs in his digestive organs, We might say that this follow has his teeth in his stomach, which does not seem such a bad ideal