Seven different kinds of pangolins are known, four of which live in Africa, and three in Asia. They all feed chiefly upon ants and termites, which they catch by breaking down the walls of their nests, and licking up the insects with their long, worm-like tongues as they run about in confusion. They live either in crevices among rocks, or else in burrows which they dig for themselves in the ground. Sometimes these burrows are of very great size, that of the Indian pangolin often running for ten or twelve feet downward into the ground, and having at the end a sleeping-chamber at least five or six feet in diameter.
When a pangolin comes to the edge of an overhanging rock, and wishes to descend to the ground below, it coils itself up into a ball and then rolls over, alighting on the edges of its scales just as a hedgehog does upon its spines. In this way it can drop ten or fifteen feet without receiving any injury.
The different species of pangolin vary a good deal in size, but the largest of them, the giant pangolin, is between four and five feet long when fully grown, including the tail.
This name means earth-pig, and has been given to the animal by the Boers of South Africa, because in general appearance it is rather like a pig. But then it has ears like those of a hare, and a muzzle and tongue like those of an ant-eater, while all its feet are furnished with long and stout claws. So that altogether it is a very odd-looking creature.
The aard-vark feeds entirely upon termites and ants, and is nearly always to be found where the nests of those insects are plentiful. It digs with great rapidity, and is said to be able to burrow into the ground faster than a man armed with a spade can dig it out. So it has no difficulty in tearing a hole through the walls of the termites' and ants' nests, and then it licks out the insects in thousands.
During the daytime the aard-vark is hardly ever to be seen, for it lies fast asleep in its burrow, which it seldom leaves till after sunset. Before digging this burrow, it mostly scoops out quite a number of half-finished ones, scraping a hole two or three feet in depth, and then leaving it and beginning on another. Why it does this nobody seems to know.