Pipisin the Pangolin is trying to hide amongst some giant chocolate Easter eggs!
Click on the picture above to open a pdf to print out and colour in.
Pangolins
Colour in a pangolin
There are eight species of pangolin in the world: four in Asia and four in Africa.
Asian pangolins:
- Chinese
- sunda
- Indian
- Philippine
African pangolins:
- long-tailed or black-bellied
- tree or white-bellied
- cape or Temminck’s ground
- giant ground
Pangolins feed on ants and termites. They can eat 70 million ants a year, collecting them up with their very long sticky tongues. They don’t have any teeth but, once inside the stomach, the ants and ground up with stones.
Click on the picture below to open a printable pdf:
Felt pangolin
Who can resist a cute soft toy pangolin?! Now you can make your own 🙂
Pangolins are the only mammals with scales. Their scales are made of keratin just like our nails and account for about 20% of the animals weight. Sadly, they are also one of the reasons why so many pangolins are killed. The scales are used in traditional Chinese medicine. All eight species of pangolin are now threatened with extinction because of illegal trade.
Due to their varying sizes, different species of pangolin are likely to have different numbers of scales. Apparently sunda pangolins (from which Philippine pangolins were only recently separated) have approximately 900 scales.
Making my felt pangolin, I lost count at 120 scales. I just kept making more as I needed them but I’m glad I didn’t have to cut out 900!
Click on the picture below to open a printable pdf:
NB. Unless you sew the scales on incredibly well, it’s not suitable for small children. No-one should be eating pangolin scales even it the are made with felt!
Peeping pangolin
One of the many special things about pangolins is there ability to roll up into a tight ball that even lions and tigers can’t get into. Unfortunately this defence makes it easy for humans to catch and smuggle them. Pangolins are the most trafficked animal in the world – illegally traded for their meat and scales.
I saw a cute paper pangolin like this online but couldn’t find a template to make it; this is my version.
Click on the picture below to open a printable pdf:
Rachel L Shaw 