Chapter 103: Pangolin Drinking Water, Two Poaching Brothers in the Forest (1.55)

The little guy fell to the ground and curled up into a ball.

It must be painful, right?

Fortunately, it is not very high from the ground.

Although it is confusing, it is not brain-wrecking.

On the side, the male pangolin is working very hard, and its two front paws can dig the soil quickly.

After digging a certain amount of soil, it will stand up its scales, press against the soil, and push its body backwards.

Pushing backwards, like a bulldozer running backwards, the soil was pushed out of the hole in just a few strokes.

Watching it through the live broadcast room now, the color of its scales is almost the same as the color of the soil.

Su Ran couldn't help but say, "Pangolins work hard and never take shortcuts or slack off. While they get delicious food, they also loosen the soil for the earth and let it breathe."

However, the pangolin doesn't care what contribution it has made. It just blinks its little eyes and its mind is all on the ants in the cave.

At this moment, the ants whose home was robbed have sent out several worker ants to gather information.

When the little worker ant saw the pangolin, he immediately went back to report to the queen ant. However, just as he returned to the cave entrance, he heard a swish from behind and was swept away by a red ribbon.

Netizens saw it clearly and just witnessed with their own eyes the pangolin sticking out a very long tongue from its mouth.

"Wow, the tongue is so long, I feel..."

"Don't feel that way. I can tell at a glance that she has no good intentions."

How can a few ants possibly satisfy a pangolin's stomach?

You should know that a pangolin's stomach can hold 500 grams of ants in one meal, and an adult pangolin can eat 7 million ants every year.

After confirming that there was an ant nest here, the pangolin immediately became very motivated and continued to dig the soil.

Then its long, sticky tongue comes in handy.

The pangolin slowly stretched its tongue into the depths of the anthill, and the mucus on the tip of its tongue easily adhered to the groups of ants in the anthill.

In just a moment, the pangolin's tongue is like a pair of precise tweezers, quickly pulling out of the ant nest, bringing out a large group of dense ants.

These ants are stuck on the tongue and cannot escape, becoming a delicious meal for the pangolin.

Netizens were worried about its tongue just by looking at it.

"Brother Su, with so many ants, isn't the pangolin afraid of being burned by formic acid?"

Su Ran laughed: "How could that be? It has started to eat ants, so it must have evolved a special defense mechanism."

After Su Ran's explanation, netizens suddenly realized that pangolin's saliva is alkaline, which can neutralize the formic acid of ants and prevent the tongue from being burned.

This is also the key to their ability to prey on ants and termites.

The thing that the pangolin would spend so much effort digging must be a large anthill, and the ants inside may be so large that it cannot eat them all in one go.

In this situation, pangolins will usually seal the ant hole and come back to eat after a few days.

After eating all the queen ants in the hole, they will rub their scales in the hole and leave their scent on the wall of the hole to lure nearby ants into the hole.

The purpose of this is to leave a way for future enjoyment.

This is what is meant by seeking dynamic balance rather than exhausting the pond to catch all the fish.

So after listening to Su Ran's explanation, the audience felt that pangolins were very smart.

But at the moment, it does not need to seal the ant hole, but instead invites his wife to enjoy the delicious food together.

The scene of the two pangolins leisurely enjoying the delicious food moved Su Ran deeply.

Even this scene made professional zoologists cry.

It’s just that netizens can’t understand why these people reacted so strongly.

Su Ran, who knew the reason well, explained to them: "In fact, pangolins are the loneliest creatures. Among all the mammals on earth, only pangolins have horny scales. There is no second one, let alone a third or fourth one."

"So except for the estrus or lactation period, pangolins are always in a solitary state."

It is almost impossible to see pangolins in groups. The only chance to see multiple pangolins is when a female pangolin wanders around with her babies lying on her tail.

After feasting on the delicious food, the two pangolins slowly came to the edge of the pond, stretched their hunched backs, and wanted to drink some water from the pond.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard he bent his body, his mouth was still some distance away from the water surface.

This made the audience very anxious, and some even said that they wanted Su Ran to go and help.

"Don't worry, they will find a way to solve it themselves."

Netizens were skeptical about Su Ran's words, but then they saw the pangolin stick out its tongue and plunge it into the water.

In an instant, the water surface began to tremble very slightly, and when I retracted my tongue, the sweet and fresh water was brought into my mouth.

The two little guys stared at the strange reflections in the water and for a moment forgot to continue drinking water.

Seeing this, netizens were also relieved, and some even said: "If I had such a long tongue, it would be convenient for me to do anything."

"I don't know about other things, but licking the planet cup will definitely work." Seeing netizens say this, Su Ran also laughed out loud, but he still explained: "If we humans have such a long tongue, it may not grow in our mouths."

"What?"

"Yeah, Brother Su, isn't the pangolin's tongue also not in its mouth?"

Su Ran smiled and nodded: "Of course, the pangolin's tongue is not in its mouth, but near its pelvis and the last pair of ribs."

Netizens exclaimed.

Su Ran felt that he had almost finished recording this time, so he smiled and said, "Director Deng, are the materials I shot enough for your research institute to study?"

Deng Jiaying thanked him gratefully: "Of course it's enough. Thank you very much for your help!"

The pangolin life recorded by Su Ran will be circulated and used for research in many animal protection organizations in China.

Many animal research experts were extremely excited when they first obtained the video footage, and even expressed their gratitude to Su Ran from the bottom of their hearts.

You know, if these research institutes want to collect this rare material, they must send people up the mountain to look for pangolins themselves.

However, there are very few wild pangolins now, and it is difficult to actively look for them. If you set up an infrared camera in the wild to take pictures, you don’t know how long it will take to take a picture.

Su Ran, who is aware of the current predicament of these experts, could not help but sigh: "In the past decade or so, more than one million pangolins have been killed and smuggled. Currently, pangolins have become one of the most illegally traded wild mammals in the world."

Netizens couldn’t understand.

"Brother Su, I really don't understand. Pangolins don't have much meat on their bodies. They're just shells. Even lynxes despise them. Why would anyone want to kill pangolins?"
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Su Ran said sadly: "Because pangolin scales are believed to have medicinal value, there is a lot of room for market profit, so driven by profit, many lawless elements go to hunt pangolins."

"But in fact, there is nothing special about the composition of pangolin scales. The main component is beta-keratin."

"What is this?" Netizens were puzzled.

A medical student jumped out to explain: "To put it bluntly, Su Ge is saying that the composition of pangolin scales is similar to that of our fingernails."

"Yes, that's right," Su Ran paused, "So the country removed pangolin from the Pharmacopoeia a few years ago."

"We can't help it. Pangolins have a very weak reproductive capacity. In many cases, they can only produce one cub a year. They can't afford to be hunted like this."

Deng Jiaying also said solemnly: "That's right, so the country has been continuously strengthening its protection of pangolins, from the initial second-class protected animals to the current first-class protected animals."

"However, despite the trend of huge profits, some criminals are still secretly trading pangolin scales."

Su Ran glanced at the comments and nodded, "So everyone, now you know how big the responsibility of a forest ranger is, and the protection of wild animals is really important."

"If we don't take action to protect them now, in a few generations, our descendants will really only be able to learn about many animals through pictures."

Then Su Ran sneered again: "Of course, the so-called decadence and luxury do not involve me, and global warming is all my fault. The real culprit is not ordinary people like us."

"So we can protest against this illegal behavior with more confidence."

Su Ran's words resonated with netizens, and even the audience felt that they would never find another expert like Su Ran who cares about ordinary people.

"I originally thought Brother Su was only one level higher than those experts, but I didn't expect he was already at the top level!"

"I'm crying my eyes out. Is there finally someone speaking up for ordinary people like us?"

"I always remember that there were a lot of advertisements on buses that said no to eating shark fins. I thought it was ridiculous at the time. Shouldn't such advertisements be put up in high-end villa areas?"

"Wealth cannot be shared, but sin must be shared equally."

"I am reluctant to turn on the air conditioner, but I need to bear the responsibility of global warming. I have never been to the sea, but the garbage on the coast is my fault."

Looking at the comments floating across the watch screen, Su Ran felt sad.

He, like the audience, is just living an ordinary life. Why should he share the sins that he cannot even touch in his own small piece of land?
Shaking his head, Su Ran took Da Hei and prepared to leave: "Let's go, Da Hei, let's go to the front to take another look, and then go back to have lunch."

"Ouch!"

Dahei was probably hungry too, and when he heard that he could finally go back, he wagged his tail happily.

In a corner of the forest, two men in camouflage uniforms were keeping an eye on every cave that appeared nearby.

At this time, one of the men with the pot-cut hair said, "Brother, I think it's not a good idea for us to keep looking like this. I think the cave we found before must be a pangolin's cave!"

Another man with a crew cut was placing a square device with a screen on it at the entrance of a cave. He pulled out a lit tube from the bottom of the device and inserted it into the cave.

Then the camera showed the scene in the cave.

In the picture, a sleepy badger was awakened by the glaring light.

The ferocious badger opened its mouth and bit towards the camera.

Fortunately, the man pulled it out in time.

"Grass!"

The crew-haired man packed up his equipment with resentment, looked at his brother and said, "Bullshit, it's not like I didn't check that cave, there is no pangolin in it at all."

The two brothers argued for a while, and the younger brother couldn't help but persuade again: "Brother, maybe the pangolin in the cave has gone out, why don't we go back and take another look, just once?"

Seeing his brother so persistent, the man with the crew cut lit a cigarette and took a puff, then simply agreed: "Okay, let's take another look. If there's nothing, let's go home today."

(End of this chapter)