The newly-identified species, Manis mysteria, is the ninth known pangolin species or the fifth Asian one.
The Asian mysterious pangolin (Manis mysteria) separated from the Philippine pangolin (shown here) and Malayan pangolin over 5 million years ago. Image credit: Gregg Yan / CC BY-SA 4.0.
Pangolins are mammals of the family Manidae and the monotypic order Pholidota.
Eight extant species of pangolins are currently recognized: the four Asian pangolins belonging to the genus Manis, and the four African pangolins belonging to the genera Phataginus and Smutsia.
Pangolins are nocturnal and live in hollow trees or burrows, depending on the species.
These animals are also called scaly anteaters because of their preferred diet (ants and termites), which they capture using their long tongues.
Pangolins have large, protective keratin scales, similar in material to fingernails and toenails, covering their skin. They are the only known mammals with this feature.
They tend to be solitary animals, meeting only to mate and produce a litter of one to three offspring, which they raise for about two years.
“Pangolins are believed to be the world’s most heavily poached and trafficked wild mammals,” said Yunnan University researcher Li Yu and colleagues.
“Overexploitation driven by escalating demand for their meat as luxury food and scales for traditional medicines has driven pangolins to the edge of extinction.”
“More than one million pangolins were poached in the decade prior to 2014.”
The existence of an unrecognized fifth Asian pangolin species was previously suggested by a 2015 genetic analysis of contraband pangolin scales confiscated in Hong Kong.
“Scientists recently found that mtDNA haplotypes from 27 pangolin scales confiscated in Hong Kong during 2012 and 2013 constituted a distinct lineage that could not be assigned to three of the four Asian pangolin species, namely the Malayan, Chinese, and Indian pangolins, or any African pangolin,” the authors explained.
“They proposed that these haplotypes derive either from the Asian Philippine pangolin, which was not included in their study, an unknown lineage of Malayan pangolin, or a putative pangolin species.”
Phylogenomic analyses, genetic difference evaluations, species delimitation, and identification of genomic island of differentiation between the cryptic new species and other Asian pangolin species. Image credit: Gu et al., doi: 10.1073/pnas.2304096120.
In their research, Dr. Yu and co-authors analyzed six pangolin scales from two confiscations in Yunnan, China, in 2015 and 2019.
The samples were more closely related to the two previously identified mtDNA haplotypes than to all other known pangolin species.
To verify the new species scenario, the researchers conducted a comprehensive survey of pangolin scale characteristics and whole-genome data of 138 individuals representing all previously recognized pangolin species and the cryptic new species.
Ninety-eight of these whole-genome sequences were newly generated.
“Our analyses provide robust and compelling evidence that the cryptic species represents a separately evolving pangolin lineage whose demographic history is distinct from all other recognized pangolin species,” they said.
The cryptic lineage diversified from Philippine and Malayan pangolins about 5.05 million years ago.
Named Manis mysteria, it becomes the ninth known pangolin species or the fifth Asian pangolin.
“Although there is currently no formal description of the type specimen, our comparative analyses of scale characters and DNA across all the pangolin species indicated that this mysterious new species belongs to the Asian pangolin genus Manis,” the scientists said.
“Considering that the trafficking pressures faced by pangolins merit taxonomic haste, we tentatively name it as Manis mysteria (the Asian mysterious pangolin).”
“In the future, a formal taxonomic description and nomenclature will require the discovery of whole animals and a type specimen.”
“A more precise and in-depth analysis on morphology such as morphometrics and computed tomography scans will be needed.”
A paper on the findings appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Tong-Tong Gu et al. 2023. Genomic analysis reveals a cryptic pangolin species. PNAS 120 (40): e2304096120; doi: 10.1073/pnas.2304096120
