Contents page 1 — “What the hell is a Pangolin?” Page 2 — dandruff cure cancer? Bullshit! On a page
These days, meeting in Paris, Biologists, politicians, Diplomats and environmentalists to advise on the IPBES conference, how the species can die to stop reading. It comes to big issues, such as the worldwide insect die, the Ecosystems of the oceans and the loss of habitat for animals and plants everywhere on earth. A species that is threatened, especially from animal smuggling, is the Pangolin. An animal rights activist has explained to us what makes this pangolin so special, and so worth protecting.
Zeit ONLINE: Ms. Diekmann, you know, actually, that you are a legend?
Maria Diekmann: Why?
TIME ONLINE: As the first person to have observed the birth of a pangolin in your lap. It is, at least. The story is true?
Diekmann: of course. And it has changed my life. That was about three years ago. Actually, it was the Pangolin, Roxy. She had been offered by a poacher caught on the black market to purchase. Known I learned about it and decided to include it. When she came to us, she had spent five days in a box. She was terrified, malnourished, dehydrated and strong. But when I let her out of the Box, built a connection to me.
I’m addicted to shed animals.
Maria Diekmann, Pangolin foster-mother
The Plan was to Roxy as soon as possible with a transmitter and released into the Wild. However, it should take four days, until the technology was available. As I saw on the second day, according to her, climbed Roxy in my lap. I felt, as something fell upon it, looked down and was frightened: it’s a snake! But then I looked a bit closer and realized that it was a Newborn, that was connected via the umbilical cord with the mother. Crazy, just crazy. In the Moment it had happened to me, everything in me said: You have to protect these creatures.
Pangolin The Pangolin
Barely an animal is so little known and so popular as the Pangolin (Manidae), Pangolin. Eight species have so far been described, four of them live in Asia and four in Africa. They owe their name to the characteristic scales which cover the body up to the abdomen completely.
With its long tongue, the toothless animals, especially ants and termites feed on. Size and weight vary depending on the species. With four to five years, for example, the Steppe pangolin as a fully grown, up to ten kilos in the southern Africa domestic mammals, then on the scale. The aging of the shed animals researchers know just as little about the mating behaviour and reproduction of animals.
