by Rare footage has captured the slow nighttime courtship ritual of pangolins — which ultimately led to the birth of a "pangopup" filmed clinging to its mother's back.
For the new PBS series "Big Little Journeys," videographers followed a pair of Taiwanese pangolins (Manis pentadactyla pentadactyla) in a forest in Taiwan.
In the clip, the female leads the male for hours through the night until she is ready to start mating.
The pair are then seen entwined as they attempt to find a position that works around their armor — overlapping scales that are so tough predators struggle to bite into it.
"Pangolins are highly sensitive to sound and smell and so we had to be extremely patient and quiet when filming them in the wild," series producer Paul Williams told Live Science in an email.
"Any sudden movement and a pangolin will take a defensive position and curl into a ball.
They can stay that way for several hours relying solely on their scales for protection — it's one reason why they are so vulnerable to poachers."
Source
For the new PBS series "Big Little Journeys," videographers followed a pair of Taiwanese pangolins (Manis pentadactyla pentadactyla) in a forest in Taiwan.
In the clip, the female leads the male for hours through the night until she is ready to start mating.
The pair are then seen entwined as they attempt to find a position that works around their armor — overlapping scales that are so tough predators struggle to bite into it.
"Pangolins are highly sensitive to sound and smell and so we had to be extremely patient and quiet when filming them in the wild," series producer Paul Williams told Live Science in an email.
"Any sudden movement and a pangolin will take a defensive position and curl into a ball.
They can stay that way for several hours relying solely on their scales for protection — it's one reason why they are so vulnerable to poachers."
Source
