Do you have dietary bias? Chinese Pangolins (𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘥𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘺𝘭𝘢 Linnaeus, 1758) definitely do.😮
They are toothless but have long sticky tongues👅 with a length of up to 40cm, which can scoop up plenty of preys at a time. Although they are classified as insectivores, they only forage ants🐜 and termites.
In a local study, over 26,000 prey items have been found in the guts of a juvenile Chinese Pangolin😮! Therein, ants take up 97% of the total number, with the rest being termites. Also, it’s predicted that the main foraging strategy of this individual is direct predation on ant nests - once it finds a nest, it’s efficient and energy saving👍🏻😌. How do we know this? Simply because the stomach contained many ant larvae and alate individuals which are generally encountered within nests. Besides, another study found that termites would become the primary food source of this species in the winter❄️.
Since Chinese Pangolin is very secretive and distributed scatteredly, scientists know little about them so far. Learning about the diet of this species allows us to gain previous information about its ecology and better protect it. 💪🏻
More reading:
1. Local study on the diet of a juvenile Chinese Pangolin through gut content analysis: https://journals.sagepub.com/.../10.1177/1940082917709648
2. Species Action Plan 2019-2024 of Chinese Pangolin by AFCD: https://www.afcd.gov.hk/.../Chinese_Pangolin_SAP_Dec2019.pdf
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