Indo Burmese pangolin
| Indo Burmese pangolin Temporal range: late Pliocene | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Infraclass: | Placentalia |
| Order: | Pholidota |
| Family: | Manidae |
| Genus: | Manis |
| Species: | M. aurita |
| Binomial name | |
| Manis aurita B. H. Hodgson, 1836 | |
| Synonyms | |
| |
Manis aurita, the Indo-Burmese pangolin, is a pangolin in the family Manidae native to India, Myanmar, Nepal, and possibly Bhutan. A 2025 publication treated it as a new species, Manis indoburmanica,[1] but the species had already been described in 1836, and the oldest available name for the species is Manis aurita.[2][3]
Description
The total body length is 70 cm.[1]
Taxonomy
In 2025, the species was recognized as distinct from the Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) under the newly described name Manis indoburmanica,[1] however the name aurita Hodgson, 1836 has priority over indoburmanica.[2]
In their 2026 reassessment and phylogenetic analysis of M. aurita, Koju and colleagues recovered it as the sister taxon to M. pentadactyla, with this clade as the sister group to one including all other Manis species. These results are summarized in the cladogram below:[4]
| Manis |
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Conservation
It is presumed to be critically endangered.[5]
References
- 1 2 3 Wangmo, Lenrik Konchok; Ghosh, Avijit; Dolker, Stanzin; Joshi, Bheem Dutt; Sharma, Lalit Kumar; Thakur, Mukesh (2025-01-07). "Indo-Burmese pangolin (Manis indoburmanica): a novel phylogenetic species of pangolin evolved in Asia". Mammalian Biology. 105 (5): 691–698. doi:10.1007/s42991-024-00475-7. ISSN 1616-5047.
- 1 2 Zijlstra, Jelle S. (2025-04-25). "Manis aurita Hodgson 1837 as a valid species of pangolin: a comment to Wangmo et al. (2025)". Mammalian Biology. 105 (5): 699–701. doi:10.1007/s42991-025-00495-x. ISSN 1616-5047.
- ↑ "Manis aurita • Indo-Burmese Pangolin". www.mammaldiversity.org. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
- ↑ Koju, Narayan Prasad; Zeng, Zeling; Zhang, Guihua; Yao, Zhicheng; Huang, Xia; Wang, Xiaoyun; Hawkins, Melissa T. R.; Hinckley, Arlo; Flores, Mary Faith C.; Guo, Ce; Li, Jun; Maharjan, Devendra; Byanjankar, Saraswoti; Huang, Lianghua; Yu, Wenhua (2026-07-01). "Revalidation of Manis aurita based on integrative genomic and morphological evidence". Communications Biology. 9 (1). doi:10.1038/s42003-026-10314-9. ISSN 2399-3642. PMC 13323723. PMID 42387092.
- ↑ "There's a new species of pangolin — and illegal trade means it's already likely to be critically endangered - EIA". 2025-01-16. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
