Jingyu YU, Fulin JIANG, Jianjun PENG*, Xilin YIN, Xiaohua MA

1. College of Life Sciences, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing 401331, China;

2. Pan Zhi Hua Jie Mao Chinese Herbal Medicine Planting Limited Compary, Panzhihua 617000, China

Malayan pangolin(Manis javanica) is one of the eight species of pangolins in the world, which belongs to the Manidae,Pholidota. It is mainly distributed in Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia,Cambodia and Yunnan Province of China. It is on the edge of extinction because of being over hunted for its great value in medicine and meal,and its habitat being great destroyed that also leads to dramatic decline of the wild population. It is listed as Endangered Species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature(IUCN)and in Appendix II of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 1992[1]. At present, it has been listed as critically endangered by the IUCN. Breeding pangolin in captivity is the primary way to solve the shortage of medicinal resources and protect wild populations. Several zoos, universities and institutes in the world have ever tried to breed pangolins in captivity, but failed. It was reported that only tree pangolin (Manis tricuspis), Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) , Indian pangolin (Manis crassicaudata) , South Africa pangolin(Manis temminckii) have ever reproduced and gave birth in zoo[2-5]. It has never been successfully to reproduce Malayan pangolin in captivity previously, herein we report the first birth and survival of cub of Malayan pangolin in captivity.

Materials and Methods

Two Malayan pangolins were introduced to Pangolin’s Breeding Center of College of Life Sciences,Chongqing Normal University on October 17 in 2014. The female was coded No.82 (whole body length of 94.8 cm and body weight of 3.13 kg),and the male coded No.81 (whole body length of 111.5 cm and body weight of 4.21 kg). These two pan-golins were identified as adults according to their morphological characteristics[6]. The two adults were separately raised after introduction, and fed with Changbai Mountain red ant (Tetramorium spp.). After about one month, the stress reaction of the two adults to the new captivity environment disappeared gradually. Then we fed them with artificial food, which was composed of 38.7% of wet Changbai Mountain red ant, 49.2% of dry Tenebrio (Tenebrio molitor) and 12.1% of dry corn flour. Daily food supply was 220 g for each one.Starting from January 24 in 2015, the two adults were put into one mating room (551.7 cm in length and 412.5 cm in width),where a pile of soil was stacked on the cement floor. The daily artificial feeding, mating and reproduction were continuously monitoring for 24 h with ultra-red video.

Results and Analysis

We observed the two adult pangolins first mating on February 3(Fig.1), and last mating on February 25, on average mating once per day(Fig.2). We raised the two adults separately after the last mating. The adult female did not take food for 2 d from April 6 to 7. Subsequently on April 8,we found one new born cub with ivorywhite glabrous soft scales (Fig.3). In order not to affect the health and development of the cub, we did not measure its body weight immediately after birth. Its body weight was measured on April 18 for the first time, after that once every few days (Fig.4). All the data prove the cub is healthily growing and developing(Fig.5).

Discussion

Determination of breeding season

Breeding season of pangolins had been reported before[2,7-8].They reported that pangolins could breed from January to December every year, and based on our observation, pangolin can breed all year round with no seasonal estrous cycle.

Determination of pregnancy

It was reported that pregnancy period of Malayan pangolin was very short, only 2 to 3 months[9]. In this report,the female adult pangolin was not pregnant during the examination and quarantine inspection after introduced into breeding base, and we observed that the pregnancy period was 68 d which is consistent with the previous report.

Litter size and number of litters per year

This paper records the litter size of Malayan pangolin is one cub, which is consistent with the previous report[10].In fact, the overwhelming majority of litter size of pangolin is one cub, but two or more occasionally.

It was ever found four pangolins in one den,including one adult male,one adult female, one sub-adult (1 500 g)and one cub (250 g)[11].This indicated that pangolin could produce at least one litter,even two litters per year.

Malayan pangolin is on the verge of extinction,and no success has been acquired before in captivity breeding.After many years of hard work on the artificial breeding, we successfully reproduce the first cub in captivity,which would provide confidence, valuable experience and information to breed in captivity, enlarge the population number and finally protect the endangered species.

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