The name of order Pholidota comes from Ancient Greek ϕολιδωτός – "clad in scales" from φολίς pholís "scale".
The name "pangolin" comes from the Malay word pengguling meaning "one who rolls up" from gu… See more

The physical appearance of a pangolin is marked by large, hardened, overlapping, plate-like scales, which are soft on newborn pangolins, but harden as the animal matures. They are made of keratin, the same mate… See more

Most pangolins are nocturnal animals which use their well-developed sense of smell to find insects. The long-tailed pangolin is also active by day, while other species of pangolins spend most of the daytime sleeping, c… See more