Precious Pangolin Cubs
The pangolin (scientific name: *Paguma larvata*) belongs to the order Carnivora, the cat family, and the family of prickly pangolins. It is a precious wild animal with a yellowish-brown color, a slightly plump body, a short and thick neck, and a body that is difficult to distinguish. There are 17 subspecies, with 9 in China. The only species in the family of prickly pangolins, belonging to the same primitive group of carnivores in the same subfamily.
Pangolins mainly inhabit forests, shrubs, rock caves, tree holes or earth burrows, and occasionally appear in cultivated lands.
Wildly distributed in Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Myanmar, India, Bhutan, Nepal, and China's North China region south of the Yellow River, from Beijing's western suburbs, Shanxi Datong, Shaanxi Qinling Mountains, to Sichuan-Ganzi, all the way to the southern Himalayas of Tibet, south to Taiwan, Hainan Island, and Yunnan south coast; the specified subspecies *Paguma larvata* is distributed in the southeast provinces; Taiwan has a unique subspecies, its distribution ranges from low to high altitude mountains, but mostly in low to mid altitude mountains and cultivated lands.
In addition, there are many artificially raised pangolins in China's Jiangxi, Guangxi, Hainan, Fujian and Guangdong.
Pangolins are forest-edge animals and nocturnal animals. They like to be active during dusk, at night and before dawn, and are good at climbing. As omnivores, they particularly like to eat juicy fruits; their main food is wild fruits and grains, they also eat tree branches, and occasionally go to orchards to eat fruit, and sometimes eat their own feces. They have a smelly gland near their anus, which emits a peculiar odor to drive away enemies.
Pangolins enter estrus from February to May. The gestation period is 70 days to 90 days. They give birth in summer, usually 1 pangolin offspring from 1 to 5 offspring. Lifespan is 15 years. After 10-12 months after birth, with a weight of more than 4 kilograms, they can reach sexual maturity around 1 year old. The breeding season is from March to August, with 4-6 estrus cycles during the breeding season, each cycle lasts 10-16 days, with an average of 14 days, and the estrus period lasts about 8 days. During estrus, the female pangolin's labia become swollen, prominent, and inverted, with wrinkles on the surface, changing from pink to red in color, and the vaginal opening is enlarged and produces mucus. The male pangolin will mate with the female, and after mating, a reddish-orange vaginal plug will fall out of the vagina. The male pangolin's testicles hang in the scrotum, and the scrotum hangs outside the abdominal wall, turning pink, and the testicles atrophy after September, and sexual desire disappears.
