New pangolin species discovered in Arunachal Pradesh

SAIKAT K BASU

Arunachal Pradesh continues to be the hotspot of rich biodiversity from the North East. This discovery once again demonstrates that it is important to conduct extensive surveys in remote areas of North Eastern India to find and document new species, untapped natural resources and related information from North East India. Recently, the scientists from the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) have discovered a new species of pangolin in Arunachal Pradesh, which is genetically different from the common Chinese and Indian pangolins found in India. The new species, Indo-Burmese pangolin, scientifically called Manis indoburmanica, is a distinct phylogenetic species of Asian pangolin. At genomic level, the Indo-Burmese pangolin differs from the closely related Chinese pangolin  by 3.8%. This new species belongs to the Manidae family; with dark brown to dark olive brown scales, and has bristly hairs on the body. The facial colour of the species is pink.

According to the findings of ZSI scientists, this species diverged from the Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) around 3.4 million years ago. The findings have been published in the popular scientific journal Mammalian Biology published from Germany, which is the official journal of the German Society for Mammalian Biology (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Saugettierkunde).

According to information released by ZSI, the newly discovered Indo-Burmese pangolin is estimated to be distributed in the vast forest regions from eastern Nepal to north North Eastern India and North Western Myanmar. In India, it is restricted to the West Kameng, Papum Pare, Upper Subansiri, East Siang, Upper Siang, Lower Dibang Valley and Siang districts of Arunachal Pradesh and the Kokrajhar district of Assam.

While working at Siluk village in East Siang district, Lenrik Konchok Wangmo working with ZSI came across a pangolin caught by villagers. The animal was sampled and photographed. After sampling, the animal was safely released in the Borguli range of Daying Ering Memorial Wildlife Sanctuary.

Genetic analysis was done and we believe that this species evolved in isolation influenced by climatic and geological changes during the Pliocene and Pleistocene eras. Its current distribution extends over Arunachal Pradesh, parts of Assam and possibly extends to Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar. The ZSI scientists used state-of-the-art genomic tools to analyse the mitochondrial genome.