This bizarre-looking creature is the world's most trafficked mammal

Meet the pangolin, a small, scaly Asian creature that wears the unfortunate crown of being the world's most trafficked mammal.

Iframe Code

View image | gettyimages.com

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

While being covered in scales has the distinct advantage of qualifying the odd creature as the most steampunk animal in existence, the pangolin's prickly exterior tends to do it more harm than good. Its keratin scales are used in traditional medicine to treat skin diseases, and pangolin meat can fetch up to $150 dollars per pound at restaurants in parts of China where it's considered a delicacy. What's worse is that because the animals are less magnificent (and less cuddly) than the poster children of endangered species' movements, like elephants and tigers, they receive less attention.

"The pangolin runs the risk of becoming extinct before most people have even heard of them," said Britain's Prince William. If an endorsement from the prince doesn't help animals' cause, Pokemon lovers of the world should rise to the occasion, as the popular character Sandslash was loosely based on the pangolin.