It is often said that the platypus is the strangest mammal on earth. But I would sooner award that status to a very different creature. While the platypus’s weirdness can be attributed to its being a montreme (an egg-laying mammal sharing some traits with reptiles and birds as well as with other mammals) I argue that the pangolin, a placental mammal like you and me, is more mysterious by far.
MEET THE PANGOLIN
©http://letopis.kulichki.net/2001/image2001/pangolin.jpg
The seven species of the single pangolin family Manis have their very own order, Pholidota. The name pangolin is Malaysian and refers to the animal’s habit of rolling itself into a ball when threatened.*
CONVERGENT EVOLUTION
Pangolins are certainly unique, but they share some behavioral and morphological traits with more familiar mammals. Sometimes called scaly anteaters, all pangolins eat burrowing insects like termites and ants, and lack teeth. Their scales are made of the same material as fur or hair, like those of armadillos. Once they were grouped in the order Edantata (which means “toothless”) with anteaters and armadillos, but they are no longer considered to be related species. Some current phylogenies place Pholidota in a clade (a discrete group of species related by evolution) with Carnivora, making carnivores such as dogs, cats, bears, mongooses, and weasels the pangolin’s closest living relatives.
SOURCES
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/eutheria/pholidota.htm
*http://www.americazoo.com/goto/index/mammals/129.htm
