The pangolin
Also called scaly anteater. A mammal with short legs covered in brownish red over-lapping scales making it look like a pinecone on legs. Only the underside lacks scales. It has a long scaled tail and 5 long curved claws on each foot. In case of danger, it rolls up like a ball, only exposing hard scales. Its head is small and pointed with very small eyes, and it has a long sticky tongue for catching its diet of ants and termites, tracked down at night by smell. Young pangolins are taxied around on the tail of their mother. The pangolin is at home in Asia’s and Africa’s forests and savannahs. Back in Eocene, pangolins also inhabited Europe. Now, several of the 8 species are endangered due to the fact that pangolin scales – consisting of the same stuff as your fingernails – are used in Chinese medicine. Pangolins are considered to be the most frequently trafficked animals in the world.
Me
I am
- a fourty-something years old female living near the town of Lenzburg in Switzerland
- a mother of two kids
- interested in many things, but very interested in all things Nature, photographing, horse-riding, gardening, meerkats and my cat, traveling and Africa, cooking, eating and having friends for dinner…
- a former biologist with focus on molecular biology, microbiology and plant sciences, who then turned to IT
- a workaholic with almost 20 years of experience in the IT outsourcing and internetworking area
- the creator and webmaster of pangolin.li since 2005, but also operating other websites (see here or here) – not because I am good at web design, but because of the content I want to provide
- called Evi (pronounced like: E as in elephant, and vi as in vicious)
- fond of pangolins, but have never seen one in the wild (yet).