Many people in the West have never even heard of the pangolin, yet this “scaly anteater” is the source of a billion-dollar criminal industry that threatens to push it to extinction. BBC Future met a team of Hong Kong’s ecologists and activists trying to save these creatures from extinction. For millions of years, the pangolin’s natural reserve had been its best defence. The only mammal with hard, plate-like scales, it looks something like a badger in chainmail – and at the merest hint of danger, the pangolin simply roles up into a tight ball that is nearly impossible for a predator to penetrate. The shell is so tough that it can even resist the teeth of lions, tigers and leopards.

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