Tree pangolin

The tree pangolin (Manis tricuspis) is one of eight extant species of pangolin ("scaly anteater") and is native to equatorial Africa. Also known as the white-bellied pangolin or three-cusped pangolin, it is the most common of the African forest pangolins.

The tree pangolin ranges from Guinea through Sierra Leone and much of West Africa to Central Africa as far east as extreme southwestern Kenya and north-western Tanzania. To the south it extends to northern Angola and north-western Zambia. It has been found on the Atlantic island of Bioko, but there are no confirmed records of a presence in Senegal, The Gambia or Guinea-Bissau.

The tree pangolin is semi-arboreal and generally nocturnal. It is found in lowland tropical moist forests (both primary and secondary), as well as savanna/forest mosaics. It probably adapts to some degree to habitat modification as it favours cultivated and fallow land where it is not aggressively hunted (e.g., abandoned or little-used oil palm trees in secondary growth).

The tree pangolin is subject to widespread and often intensive exploitation for bushmeat and traditional medicine, and is by far the most common of the pangolins found in African bushmeat markets. Conservationist believe that this species has undergone a decline of 20-25% over the past 15 years (three pangolin generations) due mainly to the impact of the bushmeat hunting. They assert that it continues to be harvested at unsustainable levels in some of its range and have recently elevated its status from "Least Concern" to "Near Threatened".