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They look like a pineapple that grew legs and a tail and started walking. Pangolins have armored bodies covered with overlapping scales that protect the medium-sized mammals that are native to parts of Africa and Asia. These scales also make them very valuable to poachers. In fact, pangolins are the most trafficked mammals in the world and are now at risk of extinction.
However, an unrecognized species of Asian pangolin (sweet aurita) has hidden among the trees of Nepal and northern India. This new species expands biologists’ understanding of where pangolins live and how they differ from each other. The new species could help prevent poaching and is detailed in a study published today in the journal Communications Biology.
“We can’t protect what we don’t know, and now that we have confirmed that this other species of pangolin exists, we can use that information to help protect these endangered animals,” Anderson Feijó, co-author of the study and mammalologist at the Field Museum in Chicago, said in a statement.
What’s in a name?
Last year, a group of scientists wrote a paper saying that Chinese pangolins (Manis pentadactyla) were not all the same. What had long been considered one species was actually two. One lives mainly in China, while the other is found in the foothills of the Himalayas, in parts of Nepal, India, Bhutan and Myanmar. They later named the mountain pangolin indoburmanic manisor the Indo-Burmese pangolin.
But the second name assigned to a species is key when naming a new species. Feijó and his team were already immersed in a decade-long analysis of the pangolin family tree. Using physical traits and DNA, they were working to support their arguments about how many pangolin species exist and how they are related. Then they read about another species of pangolin (sweet aurita) which had been described in 1836. In subsequent decades, it was demoted to a subspecies of Chinese pangolin. This left the team with a puzzle about the family tree: what is the relationship between Indo-Burmese and auriteAnd are they the same species?
Digging for a 190-year-old specimen
Fortunately for the team, the museum’s archives came to the rescue.
“The final and most exciting piece of the puzzle came from the Natural History Museum. [NHM] in London,” added study co-author Kai He, a researcher at Guangzhou University in China. “Thanks to their incredible expertise and assistance, the NHM team successfully sequenced DNA directly from the historical type specimen of the Nepalese subspecies (aurite). “This specimen dates back to 1836, making it almost 190 years old.”
This historic DNA hidden in a London archive provided definitive proof. Paired modern Himalayan specimens aurite. The species that had been described in 2025 as M. indoburmanica should actually be called aurite.
According to the team, the differences between the Himalayan pangolin aurite (which was briefly known as M. indoburmanica) and the Chinese pangolin are subtle but noteworthy. Compared to the Chinese pangolin, the Himalayan pangolin has a larger body, a longer tail and distinctly smaller ears.
“The name of the newly resurrected species, auriteIt even refers to their different ears,” said Feijó.
How accurate species names help conservation
The two species also inhabit different geographic regions that do not overlap. For critically endangered animals, and particularly those targeted by poachers, a clear and detailed description of species ranges and where they live is vital to their protection.
Pangolin scales are believed to be a powerful aphrodisiac in traditional Chinese medicine. The demand makes illegal poaching lucrative, while posing a huge threat to these animals. But ending poaching is no easy task.
“In the markets you basically only find pangolin scales, not whole animals, which makes it difficult to know which species are hunted and where they come from,” says Feijó.
New DNA analyzes like this may help scientists accurately identify the pangolin species that are being poached. Conservationists can then work backwards using samples poached from illegal markets to identify which species are being hunted and locate geographic regions most at risk of poaching.
That data can then be used to stop poachers in different regions and aid efforts to reintroduce pangolins to their correct regions.
According to the team, real-world conservation applications like these are not possible without museum collections. Many contain pangolin specimens dating back more than 100 years.
“The confirmation of sweet aurita as a valid species demonstrates the importance of long-term research, international collaboration and museum collections,” added study co-author Narayan Koju, a biologist at Pokhara University in Nepal. “Most importantly, it provides a solid scientific basis for conservation planning, wildlife forensics and efforts to protect one of the world’s most trafficked mammals from extinction.”
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