This World Pangolin Day, join us in celebrating pangolins and the amazing efforts of conservationists to protect them. The Pangolin Crisis Fund (PCF) has one mission: saving all eight species of pangolins from extinction, and your generous support enables us to make lasting impacts toward that goal. Since launching in 2019, the PCF has granted over $5.4 million to 76 projects protecting pangolins in 28 countries across Africa and Asia, and none of this tremendous investment would have been possible without people like you.
To honor this occasion, we want to highlight the three most endangered African pangolin species—the giant pangolin, and the smaller, tree-dwelling black-bellied pangolin and white-bellied pangolin. Although pangolins are relatively small in size, the threats that they face are much bigger than you think.
Continue learning about these scaly creatures and make a gift this World Pangolin Day to help them.
There are eight pangolin species found across Africa and Asia. Africa’s three most endangered pangolins are the giant pangolin, the largest of all pangolin species, and the black-bellied and white-bellied pangolins, the two smallest of all pangolin species.
Giant pangolins can weigh up to 70 pounds and grow nearly six feet long from nose tip to tail tip. Their massive size—roughly that of a medium-sized dog—confines them to the ground, where they dig burrows into the earth with powerful claws. Their range extends from Senegal to Uganda.
In Central and West Africa, black-bellied pangolins are usually found up in the trees. They are Africa’s only arboreal pangolin species, using their long prehensile tails to help them climb to high forest boughs. Black-bellied pangolins spend the majority of their lives in the trees and are also slightly smaller than their white-bellied cousins.
White-bellied pangolins are also found in Central and West Africa. Like black-bellied pangolins, they are an arboreal pangolin species. White-bellied pangolins split their time between the trees and the ground, while black-bellied pangolins spend the majority of their lives off the ground.
