The pangolin, the world's only mammal clad in armor.

The scaly armor that it wears to protect itself from harm has become a source of genocide. The pangolin, harmless to humans, harbors its own sin.

Can you eat pangolin scales?

The reptilian-looking pangolin is an ancient mammal,which dates back 40 million years, far more than Homo sapiens has experienced in just 3 million years.

The oldest Beginning pangolin lived on the European continent 46 million years ago, when, like a warrior's armor, it covered only its body and head, leaving its limbs and tail bare.

Evolutionary path, the pangolin slowly grew full scale armor, wrapped in addition to the belly of the whole body. Scales are both a shield and a tool. A pangolin that throws dirt to dig a hole, when it throws the dirt away with its claws to penetrate the hole, the scales on its body will stand up and block the dirt it digs out from falling back into the hole. When it drills into the ant hole and encounters dense ants, the overlapping scales close up and cling to the skin, defending against the ants' invasion. Most interestingly, the pangolin will also use its scales to catch ants. It will open its scales and let the ants crawl all over its body, then close the scales and run to the stream with a full harvest. When it opens its scales in the water, all the ants it has captured float to the surface, where the pangolin enjoys its meal.

When in danger, the pangolin shrinks its head, sticks to its soft belly, wraps its tail around its body, and curls up into a ball. Thick scales wrapped around the outside of the sphere, the lion's claws can only leave a road scratch on the scales, but can not penetrate the armor. The lion had no choice but to let it go.

The ball into a ball, easy to deal with the beast of the security posture, in front of the human, but into the surrender of the hands of the inferiority. Trappers simply pick up the ball and throw it into a sack, saving even the process of chasing and tying.

Why catch pangolins? Two reasons, one is to eat the meat, the second is to tear off the scales to make medicine. The efficacy and function of the scales is "to promote menstruation and breast milk, reduce swelling and discharge pus, and search for wind and collaterals. It is a blood-activating and menstruation-regulating medicine classified under the category of blood-activating and blood-stasis-removing medicines." The pharmacology and medicinal uses of Chinese medicine will not be discussed here. However, there is a detailed laboratory analysis of the composition of the scales of Andrographis paniculata, in which no special components were found, just ordinary keratin.

Taking the Chinese pangolin as an example, 100 grams of scales in a **** there are 18 kinds of amino acids, all add up to a total content of more than 94.4%, similar to other keratin components. Simply put, the main component of scales is keratin, the same material as your fingernails, the shell of a duck's beak, and the feathers of a bird. There are two types of keratin, alpha-keratin and beta-keratin. Amino acids are the basic units of keratin, which are dehydrated and condensed into peptide chains, which combine to form keratin. α-Keratin is a helical structure that is very malleable, doubling in length in hot and humid environments, and then shrinking back to its original length after drying. β-Keratin is a folded structure that is basically non-stretchable.

Pangolin scales have both α-keratin and β-keratin. The combined structure of the scales, with elasticity in between, is both stretchable and maintains a certain degree of stiffness. In addition to keratin, there are Ca, S, Si, Al and other trace elements in the scales. With the addition of trace metal elements, the strength and abrasion resistance of the scales are improved. The scales of pangolin are similar to those of snakes, with similar components and similar roles, and are a layer of the animal's protective body shell.

Although keratin is also a protein, it cannot be digested or absorbed by humans or other animals after it is eaten. Keratin scales are only practical, not edible.

How big is the smuggling trade in pangolin scales?

Rumor has it that the pangolin is full of treasures, with its scales used as medicine and its flesh tasty, nourishing yin and aphrodisiacs. So treasure hunters roamed the mountains to capture the treasure until they could no longer find it.

In 2010, the number of pangolins in China declined by more than 97 percent from 1960. It doesn't matter if you can't find the Chinese pangolin anymore, there's still the Indian pangolin, the Malay pangolin, and the Philippine pangolin. There are still 4 species of pangolin in Africa, even if the 4 species of pangolin in Asia have all been caught. In Southeast Asia, pangolin is popular in Thai, Vietnamese, and Malay restaurants. In the African market, pangolin is also very valuable, after eating the flesh, the scales can still be sold for money. In South Africa, a pangolin costs between $730 and $5,800.

Pangolin scales fetch as much as ivory and rhino horn on the Asian black market. The most smuggled wild mammal product in the world is not ivory but pangolin scales. In 2016, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) placed all of the world's pangolins (eight species) on Hazardous List I, the highest hazardous level of the catalog list. Pangolins are among the species that could lead to extinction if they are ever hunted and traded again.

The International Wildlife Trade Research Organization (TRAFFIC) calculates that from 2000 to 2019, 895,000 pangolins were traded internationally worldwide. Smuggling continues to be rampant after pangolins were fully listed as a protected species whose trade is banned. Looking at a set of numbers that can be verified with news records, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

1.Between 2017 and 2019, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam, more than 9.6 tons of pangolin scales were traded illegally.

2. In February 2017, Thai police seized pangolin scale smuggling at the airport, *** counting 3 tons of scales. The scales were shipped from the Congo via Turkey and destined for Laos.

3. In March 2017, Shanghai Customs seized 3.1 tons of pangolin scales in a container of imported wood.

4. In November 2017, Shenzhen Customs seized 11.9 tons of pangolin scales.

5. In January 2019, Hong Kong Customs seized 8.2 tons of pangolin scales in a container transported into the country by Nigeria.

6. In April 2020, Malaysian police seized 6.1 tons of pangolin scales.

The scales on an adult pangolin weigh 0.4 to 0.6 kilograms, and the figures listed above add up to mean that 700,000 to 1,050,000 pangolins were killed for their scales in three years. These scales are trafficked for medicinal purposes.

Can pangolin scales cure diseases?

With the question of whether or not pangolin scales can cure disease aside, let's rephrase the discussion to discuss what to do with pangolins if the scales can cure cancer. You might make a reasonable suggestion: to protect endangered species, we can't kill wild pangolin indiscriminately, and we can raise pangolin for medicinal purposes. Unfortunately, that's not an option that can be done at the moment.

Behind the wanton killing and rampant smuggling, there is a sadness that animal protectors can't do anything about: pangolins can't be artificially bred and raised. The pangolin, which feeds on ants and termites, is not only a picky eater but also very timid. Artificially fed pangolins often suffer from stomach ulcers or intestinal bleeding. Captive pangolins can also die from stress. Most pangolins do not live more than 200 days in captivity.

Back to the earlier question: what should we do with the pangolin that cannot be kept in captivity if its scales can cure diseases? We can do better than the old cliché of regulating and restraining the use of animals in medicine, and that is the task of biopharmaceuticals.

Biopharming explores two aspects: first, what diseases can be cured by the ingredients of natural organisms, and second, what is the active ingredient for curing diseases, and what is the synthetic active ingredient. First find out the useful ingredients that can fight the disease, and then produce it. Extract a small amount of the active ingredient from an animal's body, chemically synthesize it or culture it in vitro to put it into mass production.

Deconstructing scale components and synthesizing artificial scales is not difficult for modern biotechnology. For example, the most common Chinese medicine, Niu Huang Xie Du Pian (牛黄解毒片), contains synthetic Niu Huang (牛黄). If pangolin scales can cure diseases, the best solution is to replace wild scales with synthetic ones. If the scales can't cure the disease, the research and development of synthetic products will naturally lose its significance. So far, no pharmaceutical company has officially announced the development of artificial scales, a fact that can answer the question of whether scales can cure diseases.

Repeating the old saying: no sale no harm. Only after the trafficking of wild pangolin is no longer profitable, the repeated smuggling can really be curbed from the source. Only after the pangolin is no longer coveted by humans will it have a safe place to live.

Protecting the environment and protecting wildlife is something we can do better with modern technology.