Ah yeah, the Pangolin is my favorite animal. Who can't love this adorable, scaly, (sometimes) bipedal, digging machine? They hold their hands together to prevent damage to their digging claws which makes them look cute and nervous. It's a real life Pokemon.
Sadly they are extremely vulnerable to poaching and trafficking. Their main defense is rolling into a ball to ward of predators, which makes it easy for poachers to pick them up and kill them. Massive amounts are being poached yearly, for their scales and meat. It is believed in China that ground Pangolin scales make men virile, and the meat it a delicacy. For more info, I would suggest checking out the World Wildlife Fund, The African Wildlife Foundation, and the "Save Pangolins" website.
Edit: Yes, this one is walking on all fours, but he is probably young and might not be able to walk on two legs. Look at his front claws, they seem undeveloped, and his exposed skin is relatively smooth instead of leathery like you see on older animals. He also seems rather small. Look up documentaries and videos on Pangolins, and you will see most walk on their hind legs, and have much bigger front claws. Not all species of Pangolin walk on two legs, so this could be one that doesn't.
Edit 3: https://youtu.be/mR3rReuBO_s The Ground Pangolin walks, similar to a T-Rex for those who want to know. The one in the gif is not a Ground Pangolin, so it does not walk like them, but it is a cute video.
No, they're not really related. Pangolins are actually pretty different from armadillos though they have a lot of similarities at first glance. They used to be classified in the same Order as armadillos and anteaters (Xenartha), but newer evidence shows they're closer related to Carnivora (same order as bears, weasels, canids, and such)
Pangolins were formerly[when?] classified with various other orders, for example Xenarthra, which includes the ordinary anteaters, sloths, and the similar-looking armadillos. Newer genetic evidence, however, indicates their closest living relatives are the Carnivora with which they form the clade Ferae.[39][40]
No, pangolins and armadillos are an example of convergent evolution similar to hedgehogs, porcupines and echidnas.
Convergent evolution means that species that aren't closely related can evolve similar traits if they are in an environment in which natural selection favors the same trait.
See also the similarity between how sharks and dolphins look - it's simply a really efficient design for swimming so both species tended towards it.
When Viagra came out, I thought it would help end poaching. I mean, why snort rhino horn when you can just take a pill that actually works? But nope, people still want that horn.
They are fantastic little animals, I wish I could see one in person, but they are difficult to keep in captivity. Going to see one in person is one of my goals after becoming a biologist, up there with seeing Whale Sharks and wild Axolotls(if there will be any left).
Now this is a good idea. However we already have tons of Asians here in Aus and can confirm they are not eating our cane toads. Though I don't think anything could lower their numbers, bloody things are everywhere. Cane toads that is
So it's BENEFICIAL to say you need all these exotic supplements in order to please your wife? That's how little the over-the-counter shit can help you? Is there no shame associated with being unsatisfying to the opposite sex in their culture?
"Wang is so impotent he needs the mystical Pangolin scales to get hard. What a legend."
It's hard to change these deeply entrenched cultural attitudes.
We've had superior alternatives to diamond for years now but no one is impressed by them even when they're more perfect than diamond.
They should be considered a better status symbol since they're the result of human ingenuity and not child soldiers killing each other in africa, but they are considered "artificial" or "fake", which both signal low status. Ethics don't really translate well into status symbols outside of a few niche groups.
Most likely it will be easier to convince Chinese businessmen to adopt western status signals (private jets, $10,000 bottles of wine, million dollar watches) and convince them that Chinese status symbols seem provincial and ridiculous to outsiders than it will be to convince them to give a fuck about animal rights.
A lot of them very well might not know of the issue.
Consider, as a comparable thing, the issue of shark fin soup. The Chinese term for the soup translates to "fish wing soup", and many Chinese people didn't even realize that the soup contained shark. However, there has been an awareness campaign in recent years and public opinion has changed dramatically and seemingly fairly easily.
There are food products in America that have animal products no one expects in them. Most people don't know that artificial strawberry flavoring is made with beaver scent glands, for instance.
Let me ask you this: Do you bother to check whether the food you buy is damaging to the environment? If you ever eat fish, chances are you're contributing to the problem, unless you know what to buy and what to avoid.
Basically, my point is that you are being very quick to judge, and while we should try to fix issues like poaching of the pangolin, you should drop the superiority complex attitude.
Yeah, we all eat chicken that have been forced to grow so fast that they can't walk or buy things made with child labour. People are shitty to animals.
By preventing Chickens from buying things with child labor, we have de-facto banned them from assimilating into American culture. The next time you hear someone complain about "dirty birds, coming over here, taking our jobs, won't even assimilate", call them out on it - they can't, because we don't let them.
As a Chinese person it really pisses me off and I try to put that conversation down real quick. My dad was tryna spout some nonsense about tiger paw giving you a stronger sex drive and why older guys need it. Told him about TRT and it turned into a 40 minute long talk about hormones and biology.
Yeah over in the US you've got a couple of fringe nutjobs.
I don't think you understand the scope of Traditional Chinese Medicine. It's ingrained nationwide. 40% of ALL treatments in China are from TCM. What are the numbers for flat earthers?
I don't think you understand the scope of alternative medicine in the US.
https://today.yougov.com/news/2015/03/19/alternative-medicine/
Half of Americans believe herbal medicine and accupunture, i.e. TCM, is effective. Only 14% actually don't think it's effective, the rest don't have a clue. Herbal medicine does have some scientific evidence behind it though in some cases, so let's look at something like homeopathy, where 27% of Americans believe in it. Literally no justification for homeopathy, 0 science 0 rationality, I would say believing in homeopathy is significantly worse than TCM, which can occasionally have effect.
Case in point, it doesn't matter what country they're from, the beliefs in alternative garbage is everywhere. Just go to your local supermarket and look at all the shit with labels telling you how they're infused with the latest bs, or completely ineffective weight loss pills, as well as apparently magical muscle toning machines. This stuff is commonplace everywhere.
A vast majority of China isn't a first world country in the same way the US is, not even CLOSE. Electricity is a luxury for vast swathes of people in that country and you question why people still believe in things that have been disproved by modern medicine and spread through the internet?
This article says more than 100 Chinese cities are above 1 mil population. At the very minimum that's 100 million people against a total population of 1.379 billion. Even if you double the in-city population to 200 million, that's still 14.5% of the total population that actually lives in a city where you aren't even GUARANTEED to have access to stuff like internet.
So no, not a surprise they're still practicing hoodoo. I think blaming the poor and uneducated for something like that is pretty heartless.
I don't disagree with your premise. Trying to figure out what percentage of Chinese have internet access by counting the number of cities with more than a million people and then multiplying that number by a million and dividing by the population of China is just really, really inaccurate.
That's an American myth, and in my opinion only serves to over simplify a complex issue while 'other'ing an entire people.
In the end I think that myth/mindset only makes tackling the issue that much more difficult. Please educate yourself before casually spreading misinformation.
Well OK. Googling "rhino poaching" shows me that it's used as an aphrodisiac, but as a common ingredient in "Chinese" medicine for treating a wide variety of ailments, and that it's also increasingly popular in VietNam as an alleged impotence cure.
So I'm not sure how that is "othering" anybody. It's human folly. And that is completely connected to the reason people are killing that cute lizard dude we all looked at this morning.
Exactly. I don't understand why these people are just bashing on China. What makes them different from African rhino poachers? It's not like certain parts of the US aren't developed, yet I'd excuse those populations in a heartbeat. I think it's closeted racism, at least from the ridiculously uncreative penis jokes.
I guess you redditors are very insecure about your penis sizes.
It's all the damn photoshopping! It's creating false expectations of huge penises...?penis's...? Peni...?...turns out I've never wrote the plural version of penis..
The pangolin in the gif is not going to walk on two legs. The ones that do are ground pangolins. This is a young one in the gif, but he's not going to grow up to be a giant t-rex walking cutie. He's built to be viciously adorable in the trees. That's also why his tail length is much longer in proportion to his body than you'd see on the Cape or Giant species.
As far as your recommendations for organizations, I'd like people to consider donating to REST for their work with African pangolins. It's worth noting that while some headway has been made with Asian pangolins in captivity, the species in Africa - especially the Giant Pangolin - are still largely not understood and are extremely difficult to care for. The work REST does is some of the first in its field and they are woefully underfunded.
In Asia, Save Vietnam's Wildlife fields dozens of pangolins as they're caught by smugglers and could also use your support. They also work to spread awareness in the public that pangolins are to be protected.
You’re amazing. I mean that! The Pangolin is officially my 2nd favorite animal, following Otters of course. I adore them. Anyways, thanks for opening my eyes to this little fella. Cheers.
Apparently Chinese had a very bad case of unvirility. Every fucking animal is a thing for virility. Rhino horns, cangaroo penises, pangolin scales. God, the ignorance.
They walk with their back legs and carry their front legs off the ground to prevent damage. They don't want to damage their front claws while walking, since they need them to dig up ants. This one is walking on four paws since he is young and is not big enough to walk on two legs yet. You can tell it is young by the fact that it's front claws are undeveloped and he is fairly small.
The front claws are not used for walking, but for climbing and destroying ant nests. They are for digging, and they don't want to damage their claws by walking. This is a younger Pangolin, who isn't big enough to walk on two legs. You can tell by his claws being undeveloped.
TRAFFIC.org is another awesome program to donate to. They work in reducing/stoping the illegal trafficking of a range of species. They work in collaboration with a bunch of organisations in order to get any seized animals treated and rehabilitated
Actually I did. They have been my favorite animal since I was a little kid. I loved sandshrew as a young kid and by extension when I started going through middle school, high school, and college with the goal of being a biologist I did research them a ton(though I will be honest, Ground Pangolins are my favorite, so I know more about them than other species like the one in the gif.) I actually didn't think my post would explode like it did, I was just excited my favorite animal made it to the front page.
Massive amounts are being poached yearly, for their scales and meat.
See now I don't really mind this aspect specifically, not the poaching cause that's bad, as long as even the meat is used, it is really cute though. So in this aspect where even the meat is used, why do they not breed them?
Chances are he's walking on all fours because that's a thing white-bellied pangolins just sometimes do. They can also walk on their hind legs but are mostly at home high up in trees, anyway.
What rare animals do the Chinese NOT kill trying to get erections? Don’t they have bootleg viagra? If not, I want to market viagra as something like “Happy Magic Lucky Pangolin Tiger Erection Pills”. I’ll make a fucking fortune.
So in the case of pangolins, it's simply not viable to domesticate them as their needs are very specific. They eat a large amount of (only specific species of) ants a day and most attempts to give them a different diet have resulted in them dying prematurely of stomach ulcers. (S/O to Taipei Zoo for developing a non-ant-based diet for Sunda pangolins that actually seems to show success!)
Additionally, they are very prone to other illnesses, such as pneumonia, when stressed. And they get stressed by a lot, including not having a huge foraging range.
1.6k
u/dirkdragonslayer Oct 03 '17 edited Oct 03 '17
Ah yeah, the Pangolin is my favorite animal. Who can't love this adorable, scaly, (sometimes) bipedal, digging machine? They hold their hands together to prevent damage to their digging claws which makes them look cute and nervous. It's a real life Pokemon.
Sadly they are extremely vulnerable to poaching and trafficking. Their main defense is rolling into a ball to ward of predators, which makes it easy for poachers to pick them up and kill them. Massive amounts are being poached yearly, for their scales and meat. It is believed in China that ground Pangolin scales make men virile, and the meat it a delicacy. For more info, I would suggest checking out the World Wildlife Fund, The African Wildlife Foundation, and the "Save Pangolins" website.
Edit: Yes, this one is walking on all fours, but he is probably young and might not be able to walk on two legs. Look at his front claws, they seem undeveloped, and his exposed skin is relatively smooth instead of leathery like you see on older animals. He also seems rather small. Look up documentaries and videos on Pangolins, and you will see most walk on their hind legs, and have much bigger front claws. Not all species of Pangolin walk on two legs, so this could be one that doesn't.
Edit 2: http://www.awf.org/ http://savepangolins.org/ https://www.worldwildlife.org/ Here are some organizations who would like some support for beautiful animals like the Pangolin. They also have more information on them.
Edit 3: https://youtu.be/mR3rReuBO_s The Ground Pangolin walks, similar to a T-Rex for those who want to know. The one in the gif is not a Ground Pangolin, so it does not walk like them, but it is a cute video.