Interesting article. I wouldn’t want to place bets on the long-term outlook of this M Mysteria given that the entire family is so endangered.
The difficulties in distinguishing M Mysteria from other Manis species just stresses the folly that is categorization. Yes, it has genetic differences from previously seen family members / “known” species. But is that enough to make it a species all to its own? For a specimen that hasn’t been seen in person, on what basis are we declaring it a separate species? Surely a genetic divergence isn’t enough (article says you can’t tell just by comparing the scales) - you’d have to study the specimens themselves, their behavior, see if they can breed, etc.
> Using their genomes, the researchers were able to estimate that the armored animals diverged from other pangolin species “over five million years ago,” said Hua-Rong Zhang, a conservation geneticist at Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden in Hong Kong and an author of the paper.
It’s so strange to me that capturing wild animals is the only way to go about it. If demand is so high, why are there no farms already? Instead of decimating the population, they’d help with conservation.
You can't just put wild animals behind a fence and expect them to live happily. Typically animals have had to be domesticated through generations of breeding before they can live in those conditions, and for certain animals, that just doesn't work for some reason. I think I read that the ancestor of the cow was genetically suited for domestication, but buffaloes are not.
I'd compare this to the way that for some reason we just haven't figured out how to farm truffles. Even though they're extremely valuable, we can only find them growing wild.
> Many attempts have been made to breed pangolins in captivity, but due to their reliance on wide-ranging habitats and very particular diets, these attempts are often unsuccessful. Pangolins have significantly decreased immune responses due to a genetic dysfunction, making them extremely fragile. They are susceptible to diseases such as pneumonia and the development of ulcers in captivity, complications that can lead to an early death. In addition, pangolins rescued from illegal trade often have a higher chance of being infected with parasites such as intestinal worms, further lessening their chance for rehabilitation and reintroduction to the wild.
You may have read that in "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Diamond, which is pop science but highly recommended.
There's an additional distinction between animals that can be domesticated (grown on a farm) and tamed (born in the wild, brought into zoos).
To be domesticated, an animal must have several compatible attributes:
1. Size - It's just not worth it to try to domesticate mice. It's barely worth it to domesticate rabbits. Today, we might domesticate pangolins, rabbits, rats, etc. because cuteness, charisma, or rare medical utility is now valuable enough to have someone specialize in, but you're not going to get the benefits of millenia of breeding the best sheep for domestication.
2. Temperament - An animal must be docile, able to be calm in reasonably close proximity to humans. Typically this means herding or flocking social herbivores, and not flighty, vicious ones.
3. Reproductive rate - If it's going to take multiple generations of farmers to grow one generation of Galapagos tortoises or elephants to maturity, you're not likely to have a self-sustaining farm. A breeding program over centuries becomes a civilization-level project, not a personal project.
4. Diet - Again, today we could hypothetically feed termite larvae to pangolins at comparatively great expense. But if you want millenia of breeding to improve your domestication progress, they're basically going to have to be willing to eat stuff that's easy to provide and that doesn't compete with human diets, such as grass.
Buffalo are not suited to domestication because they fail criteria #2, unlike cows. Diamond argues that this failure is part of why the Europeans colonized the Americas rather than the other way around - Eurasia had horses, cows, sheep, goats, pigs, wheat, barley, rice, and more, the Americas had buffalo, llamas, deer, beans, and maize (the latter two being great grains in calories per acre, but not half as good as modern corn, and not easy to farm without draft animals).
Readit News
The difficulties in distinguishing M Mysteria from other Manis species just stresses the folly that is categorization. Yes, it has genetic differences from previously seen family members / “known” species. But is that enough to make it a species all to its own? For a specimen that hasn’t been seen in person, on what basis are we declaring it a separate species? Surely a genetic divergence isn’t enough (article says you can’t tell just by comparing the scales) - you’d have to study the specimens themselves, their behavior, see if they can breed, etc.
This site says that pangolins haven't survived in captivity https://www.ifaw.org/journal/faq-pangolins#:~:text=Pangolins....
I'd compare this to the way that for some reason we just haven't figured out how to farm truffles. Even though they're extremely valuable, we can only find them growing wild.
> Many attempts have been made to breed pangolins in captivity, but due to their reliance on wide-ranging habitats and very particular diets, these attempts are often unsuccessful. Pangolins have significantly decreased immune responses due to a genetic dysfunction, making them extremely fragile. They are susceptible to diseases such as pneumonia and the development of ulcers in captivity, complications that can lead to an early death. In addition, pangolins rescued from illegal trade often have a higher chance of being infected with parasites such as intestinal worms, further lessening their chance for rehabilitation and reintroduction to the wild.
There's an additional distinction between animals that can be domesticated (grown on a farm) and tamed (born in the wild, brought into zoos).
To be domesticated, an animal must have several compatible attributes:
1. Size - It's just not worth it to try to domesticate mice. It's barely worth it to domesticate rabbits. Today, we might domesticate pangolins, rabbits, rats, etc. because cuteness, charisma, or rare medical utility is now valuable enough to have someone specialize in, but you're not going to get the benefits of millenia of breeding the best sheep for domestication.
2. Temperament - An animal must be docile, able to be calm in reasonably close proximity to humans. Typically this means herding or flocking social herbivores, and not flighty, vicious ones.
3. Reproductive rate - If it's going to take multiple generations of farmers to grow one generation of Galapagos tortoises or elephants to maturity, you're not likely to have a self-sustaining farm. A breeding program over centuries becomes a civilization-level project, not a personal project.
4. Diet - Again, today we could hypothetically feed termite larvae to pangolins at comparatively great expense. But if you want millenia of breeding to improve your domestication progress, they're basically going to have to be willing to eat stuff that's easy to provide and that doesn't compete with human diets, such as grass.
Buffalo are not suited to domestication because they fail criteria #2, unlike cows. Diamond argues that this failure is part of why the Europeans colonized the Americas rather than the other way around - Eurasia had horses, cows, sheep, goats, pigs, wheat, barley, rice, and more, the Americas had buffalo, llamas, deer, beans, and maize (the latter two being great grains in calories per acre, but not half as good as modern corn, and not easy to farm without draft animals).
The four South American camelids are an interesting example of this.
Llama are domesticated guanaco and alpaca are domesticated vicuña.
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