In the News . . . for All the Wrong Reasons | God's World News
In the News . . . for All the Wrong Reasons
Critter File
Posted: September 01, 2020

Say cheese, Mr. Pangolin. You’re in the news!

Why isn’t the pangolin giving us a cheesy grin? It’s partly because he has no teeth. And it’s partly because today’s pangolin news is nothing to smile about.

Pangolins are some of the most often illegally traded animals on the planet. Just last year in Zhejiang, China, authorities arrested 18 pangolin smugglers. They took away 23.1 tons of pangolin scales. These probably came from around 50,000 pangolins. Each pangolin died to give up its scales.

In other news . . .

Some scientists wondered if pangolins passed the novel coronavirus to people. We know this coronavirus is zoonotic. That means it first spread to people from animals. The virus started in Wuhan, China. People suspect someone bought contaminated meat at a market there and caught the sickness. Was that person shopping for pangolin stew? Or did he or she dine on a bat? Both animals can carry viruses similar to this coronavirus. Did the virus travel from a bat to a pangolin to a person? Scientists don’t know for sure. No one has been able to pin the COVID-19 outbreak on the pangolin with any certainty.

Poachers kill pangolins for money. People buy the dead animal parts because of their superstitions. But God made pangolins with good purposes in mind. The shy mammals can be as small as a housecat—or as big as a kid. They walk on two legs with short front arms dangling. (Remind you of anything? Some compare the pangolin’s funny gait to the T. Rex.) When threatened, pangolins roll into a ball. Their scales protect them. (King George III took his cues from the pangolin in 1820. He owned a suit of armor made from pangolin scales.) Got termites? Ants? A pangolin can help. Each year, one gobbles up (and swallows whole) as many as 70 million insects!

In His hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind. — Job 12:10