Pangolins have the dubious distinction of being the most trafficked mammals in the world. Yet as often as they wind up in wildlife seizures, authorities and conservationists have no universal way to track and identify individual pangolins. But researchers are working to change this. In a recently published study, they proposed what they call the Pangolin Universal Notching System (PUNS), a standardized way to assign unique identification numbers to up to 15,554 individuals. PUNS combines existing marking techniques used for turtles and hoofed mammals. This minimally invasive method involves gently drilling holes in a selected number of a pangolin’s scales along the back for permanent identification. The Pangolin Universal Notching System used on a Temminck’s pangolin works by marking scales along its back. In the left illustration, the pangolin is shown from above, with its head at the top. The scale closest to the shoulder on the left side is marked “1,” and the one on the right is marked “100.” The scale between these two marks shows if the pangolin is male or female: if it’s the first scale, it’s a male, and if it’s the fifth scale, it’s a female. In the right illustration, to identify the number 7238, the 7000, 200, 20, 10, 7, and 1 scales as well as the first scale in the midline indicating male are marked. Image courtesy of Martin et al. (2024). “Stress during notching is negligible, and the marks themselves don’t jeopardize the pangolins’ health in any way, nor make them…This article was originally published on Mongabay
Article by:
This story first appeared on Mongabay
South Africa Today – Environment
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and Mongabay, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
