Due to their specialised diet of ants and termites, pangolins are notoriously difficult to care for. At first, our keepers tried to emulate the anteater diet – a porridge made from fruits, meat and mealworms. As pangolins have no teeth, the tendons had to be removed from the meat before it was blended. Later, crude fibre in the form of ground-up termite mounds was added. Most recently, the keepers have substituted the meat with ant eggs. Our pangolins are positively lapping this up.

One of the first things our pangolin keepers look out for in the morning is poop. Healthy pangolins produce poop that is blackish and tubular. Eight out of our 10 pangolins have the bizarre habit of pooping in their water dishes, so extra dishes are provided for them. Panjang, who was named for his long tail (‘panjang’ means ‘long’ in Malay), is one of them. Unfortunately, he sometimes misses the dish target due to the length of his tail!

This strange business might have to do with the fact that the pangolin is a confident swimmer. Not only does it swim well, it can scoot up a tree with surprising speed. Its prehensile tail works like a fifth limb. The bottom tip of the tail is naked and helps it maintain its grip around branches and tree trunks, which is why our keepers are ever-watchful when taking them out on walks. If they decide to scale a tree, it would be tough trying to get them to come down.