Scientists have given the newly discovered pangolin a temporary name of "mysterious", and you may never guess why...

Not long ago, the team led by Professor Yu Li from the School of Life Sciences of Yunnan University announced that they had discovered a new pangolin, temporarily named "Mysterious Pangolin" (Manis mysteria). This is the ninth known pangolin species and the fifth Asian pangolin.

The picture comes from the Internet

The reason why this new species of pangolin is given such a "mysterious" name is because the research team has not actually seen this animal. Similarly, they don't know where this animal lives. After reading this, you may want to slam your head on the table: an animal that you have never seen can actually be published as a new species and named. Is scientific research work so unserious!

But wait, it’s a little inaccurate to say that scientists haven’t seen this pangolin. In fact, they have seen this pangolin, but the individuals they saw were not complete - not even "partial". Perhaps you have guessed that the research team identified this new species based on "scaly scales".

For well-known reasons, all animals of the pangolin family have been listed as key protected species. Among them, the Chinese pangolin (M. pentadactyla) is a first-class protected animal in China. Including the Chinese pangolin, the entire pangolin family is listed in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, and any commercial use of hunting from the wild is prohibited. However, poaching and illegal trade of pangolins have been repeatedly banned. Large-scale pangolin smuggling cases have been cracked in many places in China.

In 2012 and 2013, Hong Kong Customs seized and confiscated 27 pangolin scales. Dr. Zhang Huarong's team at Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden in Hong Kong analyzed these 27 scales and found that two new haplotypes may not be related to the eight pangolin species known at the time. However, the gene fragments detected at the time were very limited, so it was not possible to draw a clearer conclusion based on this.

Following this clue, Yu Li's team analyzed samples from two batches of pangolin scales confiscated in Yunnan Province in 2015 and 2019. They eventually determined that a new pangolin species does exist. The species was temporarily named "Mysterious Pangolin", which reflects this incredible research process.

Scales of a new species of pangolin found in seized samples. Image credit: Yang Feng (Kadoorie Farm Botanic Garden, Hong Kong SAR, China)

Previously, humans knew of eight species of pangolins, four of which are distributed in Asia and four in Africa. All four Asian pangolins are classified in the genus Manis and are closely related. The "mysterious pangolin" confirmed this time was differentiated from the Philippine pangolin (M. culionensis) and the Malayan pangolin (M. javanica) about 5 million years ago.

Asian pangolins are found in southern China, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. The region has a high degree of environmental diversity and distinct habitat differentiation, so there are a large number of unknown species that have yet to be discovered by scientists. The discovery of the ninth pangolin species shows that we need to do more research on Asian pangolins.

The discovery was based on comparative studies of molecular biology and had some comparative data on the morphology of the nail scales. But the problem is that scientists have no way to trace the origin of the nail scales.

Currently, all pangolins are protected species. In theory, there are no legally imported pangolins. In the illegal trade, poachers usually remove the scales and transport and sell them together, and the carcasses without scales are grouped together.

Therefore, the smuggled scales are mixed together in a large pile. In recent years, several major cases involved one or two tons of scales. In 2021, Guangdong Customs even cracked a major case involving 8 tons of scales. The scales of an Asian pangolin weigh about 0.5 kilograms. In other words, one ton of scales means it comes from 2,000 pangolins. Moreover, these illegally traded scales cannot be traced to which country they come from, nor do we know which island or forest they come from.

The picture comes from the Internet

So, at present, we have no idea what the ninth pangolin species looks like, let alone its distribution, number, and habitat. It is indeed extremely rare to announce a new species of animal in this way.

New research shows that this species has a high inbreeding coefficient. In other words, the probability of "inbreeding" between mysterious pangolin individuals is relatively high. This situation may mean that they are either distributed on a small island or isolated forest, and are a very small population; or they have experienced a major disaster and the number of individuals is already very small - this species itself is already in an extremely vulnerable state.

It is worth mentioning that the name "Mysterious Pangolin" given by scientists to this new species is a "tentative name". Strictly speaking, if you want to formally describe and name a species, you need to discover the species itself and establish a "type specimen". At present, we only know that they exist, but we can't see what they look like, so we can't establish a type specimen and formally name them.

If the illegal wildlife trade cannot be eradicated as soon as possible, perhaps scientists and perhaps we will never be able to see the true appearance of the "mysterious pangolin". It will always remain a "temporary name".

References

[1] Tong-Tong Gu et al, Genomic analysis reveals a cryptic pangolin species, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2304096120

Planning and production

Author: Huashi Popular Science Writer Xu Lai Popular Science Writer

Review | Huang Chengming, Researcher at the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Planning｜Xu Lai

Editor: Yang Yaping