Michael Botes submitted this video to Latest Sightings. He filmed it at MalaMala, within South Africa’s Sabi Sand Game Reserve.
Rare sighting
Michael’s video begins with an extraordinarily rare sighting. We see a pangolin, making its way through a field of green grass.
At the best of times, sightings of this endangered species are incredibly rare, so to see it walking around in broad daylight is all the more special.
Solitary and secretive, pangolins are a nocturnal mammal that feeds on ants and termites. They use a combination of powerful limbs, sharp claws and long tongues to extract food from nests.
But the defining characteristic of their appearance is their heavily scaled body. This, along with a foul-smelling secretion, is their main defence against predators.
Resting lions
Next, the video cuts to a seemingly unrelated scene showing a pride of lions resting. Unlike sightings of pangolins, this is not at all uncommon.
Lions spend up to 20 hours of every day conserving their energy for predominantly nocturnal activity.
In this pride, there are numerous cubs and sub-adults. And, as any parent will testify, the kids don’t always want to sleep when mom and pop are taking a siesta.
In fact, they get bored. So, when an unusual intruder strayed into their midst, it was soon the youngsters’ focus of attention.
A ball to play with
In the next scene, we see that one of the cubs seems to have found a ball to play with. Watched by its younger sibling, it holds the ball steady while trying to bite it.
It is only when the camera zooms in that we realise that the ‘ball’ is, in fact, a pangolin.
By the way the two cubs are examining it, this may be their first encounter with a pangolin. They seem to know it is alive and potentially edible, but they just don’t know what to do with it.
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Impenetrable defences
When threatened, pangolins curl into balls, covering their vulnerable head with their tails. Their interlinked scales are all but impenetrable, much to the chagrin of the cubs.
Frustrated and possessive of its ‘toy’, the cub snarls at its sibling. However, when it is unable to ‘open’ the pangolin, it relents and lets the smaller cub have a go.
But, when the cub tires, the older brother resumes possession and tries once more to unravel the puzzling pangolin.
According to Michael, some of the cubs played with the pangolin for six hours. Which says as much about their attention span as it does about the pangolin’s ability to defend itself.
However, not all of the youngsters were as intrigued, with some preferring to hone their fighting skills on one another.
Experience says sleep when you can
But when the wrestling got boring, they returned to the pangolin, much to the fascination of the watching tourists.
That the adults in the pride preferred to sleep is also telling. Perhaps they knew better than to waste precious energy (and sleeping time) on trying to get around the pangolin’s remarkable defensive armour.
