Pangolin Research Project
The Temminck's ground pangolin (Smutsia temminckii) is one of Africa's most ecologically important and least understood mammals. Covered in protective scales and feeding exclusively on ants and termites, this ancient species has survived for more than 60 million years — yet today faces threats that no evolutionary adaptation can outpace. At Okonjima Nature Reserve in central Namibia, AfriCat's Pangolin Research Project (APRP) is conducting long-term scientific research on a wild, free-ranging pangolin population to fill critical knowledge gaps and translate findings into direct conservation action.
Temminck's Ground Pangolin: Africa's Most Trafficked Mammal
Covered in overlapping scales and armed with a tongue longer than its body, the Temminck’s ground pangolin Smutsia temminckii is one of Africa’s most unusual mammals. Pangolin belong to the order Pholidota, an evolutionarily ancient lineage with no close living relatives. Fossil evidence shows that they have existed for more than 60 million years, surviving major environmental changes that wiped out many other species. In evolutionary terms, pangolin are true survivors, representing one of the oldest mammal lineages still alive today.
There are eight pangolin species worldwide, four of which occur in Africa. Temminck’s pangolin is the only one adapted to the dry landscapes of southern Africa (Figure 1). It is fully terrestrial, solitary, and active mainly at night. Individuals spend much of their lives hidden, either underground in burrows or moving quietly through vegetation while foraging. This secretive lifestyle makes pangolin difficult to study and easy to overlook, even in areas where they are present.
Pangolin are myrmecophagous, meaning their diet consists entirely of ants and termites. They rarely drink water, relying instead on moisture obtained from their prey and on specialised physiological adaptations that allow them to survive in arid environments. Some populations persist in areas receiving as little as 250 millimetres of rainfall per year. These traits allow pangolin to occupy a wide range of savanna habitats; however, they are never abundant, which makes them especially vulnerable when additional threats are introduced.
Threats Facing Pangolin in Namibia and Southern Africa
Despite their wide distribution, pangolin are under severe pressure and are currently classified as Vulnerable on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, with a declining population trend (Figure 2). They are now recognised as the most trafficked mammals in the world, driven largely by illegal trade for their scales and meat. Following dramatic declines in Asia, African pangolin have become increasingly targeted and in 2016, all pangolin species were granted the highest level of international protection under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), yet illegal trade remains a major threat. In 2025, a Wildlife Protection and Law Enforcement in Namibia report revealed that at least 50 pangolin were poached and 312 scales were seized. The governing body highlights that this is a modest estimate, as statistics are based purely on seizures.
Poaching is only one of many threats pangolin face. Across southern Africa, pangolin are also affected by drought, changing rainfall patterns, and increasingly intense veld fires. Human infrastructure adds further risks. Pangolin are frequently killed on roads, electrocuted on poorly designed electric fences, or drowned in open canals and reservoirs. Habitat fragmentation, bush clearing, and the use of pesticides reduce both shelter and food availability. Many of these threats operate quietly and accumulate over time, making their true impact difficult to detect until populations are already in decline.
The Ecological Role of Pangolin in Savanna Ecosystems
Pangolin play an important ecological role that far exceeds their numbers. A single individual may consume tens of millions of ants and termites each year. Many of these insects are agricultural pests, meaning pangolin help regulate populations that can damage crops and grazing lands. In Namibia, an assessment by the Pangolin Working Group (PWG), pangolin have been credited with contributing substantially to agricultural productivity by reducing insect-driven vegetation loss (Namibia Chamber of Environment, 2023).
Their influence extends beyond what they eat. As pangolin dig for prey and move between burrows, they disturb and aerate the soil, which improves water infiltration and redistributes nutrients. Their burrows and foraging sites are later used by other animals, from insects to reptiles and small mammals. In this way, pangolin act as ecosystem engineers, shaping the landscapes they inhabit.
AfriCat’s Pangolin Research Project at Okonjima Nature Reserve
Despite their ecological importance and growing conservation concern, Temminck’s pangolin remains one of the least understood mammals in southern Africa. Fundamental questions are still unresolved. How many pangolin live in a given area? How much space do they need? How far do young animals disperse? Which habitats do they rely on, and how do rainfall and drought affect their survival?
AfriCat’s Pangolin Research Project (APRP) was established to address these gaps through long-term study of a wild, free-ranging population in Okonjima Nature Reserve. The project is explicitly interdisciplinary, combining population monitoring, movement ecology, foraging ecology, life-history tracking, and genetic analyses. A central goal is to ensure that biological knowledge directly informs conservation management. By embedding research within a Reserve and maintaining continuity of monitoring over many years, AfriCat can translate scientific findings into practical, adaptive conservation actions at both local and landscape levels.
How AfriCat’s Pangolin Research Project Began
Pangolin research at Okonjima began in 2017 with a small pilot study involving two rehabilitated individuals. Although limited in scope, this work produced two critical outcomes. It confirmed the presence of a naturally occurring pangolin population within the Reserve, prompting a strategic shift away from rehabilitation-focused efforts towards research on wild pangolin. It also identified electric fencing as a potential and previously under-recognised threat, leading to immediate mitigation through modification of the Reserve’s perimeter fence. To make the Reserve safer and more hospitable for pangolin, the bottom wire of the electric fence was raised to avoid the possibility of electrocution.
Building on this foundation, the APRP was formally launched in 2018. Between 2018 and 2021, the APRP was led by Kelsey Prediger, who later founded the Pangolin Conservation and Research Foundation (PCRF). The work she completed was for her Master’s thesis at the Namibian University of Science and Technology (NUST) and represented the first detailed ecological study of Temminck’s pangolin in central Namibia. Resident individuals were identified across the Reserve, some of which were fitted with tracking devices, allowing baseline estimates of home range size, spatial overlap, prey preference, and burrow use to be established (Prediger, 2021).
Pangolin Population Distribution and Habitat Use in Namibia
Since 2021, the APRP has expanded to monitor an increasing number of wild pangolin using a combination of VHF and GPS telemetry, camera traps, and direct observation. These methods allow AfriCat to assess where pangolin occur within the Reserve, how they move through the landscape, and which habitats they use most frequently.
Presence records collected across Okonjima indicate that pangolin are unevenly distributed rather than spread uniformly across the Reserve (Figure 3). Spatial analyses show higher concentrations in certain areas, suggesting that suitable habitat is shaped by a combination of vegetation structure, soil type, and prey availability. Temporal changes in presence patterns point to seasonal shifts in habitat use and the dispersal of sub-adult individuals. The next phase of the project aims to focus on apparently low-density areas to try to verify the presence and density of pangolin.
Movement data reveal clear differences between males and females. Adult males range over much larger areas and often overlap with the home ranges of multiple females, while females occupy smaller, more defined areas (Figures 4a & 4b). These patterns are consistent with findings from South Africa and Zimbabwe. Such information is critical for understanding how much space pangolin require and how infrastructure or habitat fragmentation may affect population viability.
Using confirmed records from the second quarter of 2025, AfriCat estimated the crude overall density for pangolin to be 0.12 pangolin/km2 for all age groups. This figure is lower than density estimations in other parts of southern Africa. South Africa and Zimbabwe, which have estimates of 0.23 – 0.31 pangolin/km2. Ongoing monitoring is required to determine whether this reflects true differences in habitat quality or variation in sampling effort.
Pangolin Dispersal Patterns and Population Connectivity in Southern Africa
Patterns of spatial overlap between males and females, combined with genetic kinship data (Figure 6), are consistent with a polygamous mating system. Tracking data also identifies dispersal events by sub-adult pangolin, which play a crucial role in maintaining genetic diversity and connecting subpopulations across the landscape (Figures 5a, 5b, 5c & 5d). These processes are particularly important for a species that reproduces slowly and typically raises only a single offspring at a time, making recovery from population declines inherently slow.
What Do Pangolin Eat? Foraging Ecology and Prey in Semi-Arid Habitats
Temminck’s pangolin are obligate feeders on ants and termites, and their survival is tightly linked to the availability of these insects. AfriCat assesses prey availability using pitfall trapping and direct observation during foraging bouts, which provide insight into diet composition and foraging behaviour. Future analysis hopes to integrate scat analysis to further investigate their feeding habits and preferences.
Preliminary results indicate that pangolin do not forage opportunistically. Instead, they appear to selectively target particular ant and termite species, even when those species are not the most abundant. Seasonal changes in prey availability are also evident and are likely to influence movement patterns, habitat use, and body condition.
By integrating prey data with movement and habitat analyses, AfriCat aims to assess how environmental factors such as rainfall variability, bush encroachment, and land management practices shape pangolin foraging success. This is especially important in semi-arid systems, where climate variability can rapidly alter food availability.
How Human Activity and Infrastructure Threatens Pangolin Survival
Human-related threats remain among the most significant risks facing pangolin. In addition to poaching and habitat loss, infrastructure such as roads, electric fences, and open water canals can cause substantial mortality.
Electric fencing poses a particularly serious threat. Pangolin are low to the ground and often move along fence lines, increasing the risk of electrocution. This is exacerbated by their propensity to curl up as a defence mechanism; they curl over the wire and are continuously electrocuted until they die. Studies elsewhere in southern Africa suggest that electric fences may account for a meaningful proportion of annual pangolin mortality.
Tracking data also show that pangolin occasionally move beyond Reserve boundaries, underscoring the importance of working with neighbouring landowners and addressing threats at a landscape scale rather than relying solely on protected areas. This is an invaluable method for raising awareness surrounding the plight of the pangolin.
GPS Tagging and Long-Term Monitoring of Wild Pangolin
Monitoring pangolin presents unique technical and ethical challenges. Tracking devices must be lightweight and safe, yet durable enough to withstand repeated burrow use, dense vegetation, and abrasive substrates. Tag failure has been a persistent limitation, resulting in data gaps due to battery depletion, antenna damage, or detachment.
Since 2024, AfriCat has worked closely with SmartParks to improve tag performance. A major advance has been the development of an algorithm that restricts GPS fix attempts to periods when pangolin are active above ground, significantly extending battery life. Alternative attachment systems and antenna materials are also being trialled to improve durability while maintaining animal welfare.
To complement tracking, AfriCat has introduced non-invasive identification methods, including externally affixed microchips and genetic sampling from naturally occurring skin tags found beneath the scales. Improvements in DNA extraction methods have enabled genetic analyses of kinship and population structure in collaboration with the Technical University of Munich (TUM).
Pangolin Study
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Pangolin Studies
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Pangolin Studies
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