Smutsia

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Smutsia
Temporal range: 12.98–0  Ma
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Late Miocene - present [1]
Smutsia.jpg
Pangolins from genus Smutsia
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Pholidota
Suborder: Eupholidota
Superfamily: Manoidea
Family: Manidae
Subfamily: Smutsiinae
Gray, 1873 [2]
Genus: Smutsia
Gray, 1865 [3]
Type species
Smutsia gigantea
Illiger, 1815
Species
Manis ranges.png
   Smutsia gigantea
   Smutsia temminckii
Synonyms
synonyms of subfamily:
  • Smutsiana (Gray, 1873)
  • Smutsiini (Gray, 1873)

Smutsia ("Smuts's animal") or African ground pangolin is a genus of pangolins from subfamily Smutsiinae within family Manidae. [4] [5] [6] [7] It was formerly considered a subgenus of genus Manis . [8] Its members are the more terrestrial of the African pangolins. [9] In the past, this genus was also present in Europe. [10]

Contents

Etymology

British naturalist John Edward Gray named Smutsia for South African naturalist Johannes Smuts (1808–1869), [11] [12] the first South African to write a treatise on mammals in 1832 (in which he described the species Manis temminckii ).

Description

The Smutsia species can be easily distinguished due to a layer of protective horny scales covering their long streamlined bodies, small cone-shaped heads, and thick tails. Resembling artichoke leaves, the scales are composed of fused hairs. When threatened, members of the species roll into an impenetrable ball, leaving the sharp, yellow-brown scales exposed to the predator.

Diet and nutrition

Ground pangolins are carnivorous animals which mainly eat termites and ants, though larvae and other soft-bodied insects are also consumed on occasion.

Mating life

Ground pangolins reach sexual maturity at around 5–7 years of age. The species is described as polygynous: one male will mate with multiple females, but females tend to mate with only a single male. The gestation period lasts for 139 days, with each pregnancy yielding a single offspring. Mothers and their young shelter underground until the pups reach 2 to 4 weeks of age, at which stage they are carried outside the nest, though they remain with their mothers for 3 months.

Taxonomy

  • Subfamily: Smutsiinae(Gray, 1873) (large African pangolins)

Phylogeny

Phylogenetic position of genus Smutsia within family Manidae based on Wangmo (2025.) study: [1]

  Manidae  

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Wangmo, Lenrik Konchok; Ghosh, Avijit; Dolker, Stanzin; Joshi, Bheem Dutt; Sharma, Lalit Kumar; Thakur, Mukesh (2025). "Indo-Burmese pangolin (Manis indoburmanica): A novel phylogenetic species of pangolin evolved in Asia". Mammalian Biology. 105 (5): 691–698. doi:10.1007/s42991-024-00475-7.
  2. ↑ Gray, J. E. (1873). "Hand-list of the edentate, thick-skinned and ruminant mammals in the British Museum". London, Printed by order of the Trustees: 1–176.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  3. ↑ Gray, J. E. (1865). "Revision of the genera and species of entomophagous edentata, founded on the examination of the specimens in the British Museum". Proceedings of the Zoological Society: 359–386.
  4. ↑ Gaudin, Timothy (2009). "The Phylogeny of Living and Extinct Pangolins (Mammalia, Pholidota) and Associated Taxa: A Morphology Based Analysis" (PDF). Journal of Mammalian Evolution. 16 (4). Heidelberg, Germany: Springer Science+Business Media: 235–305. doi:10.1007/s10914-009-9119-9. S2CID   1773698. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-25. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  5. ↑ Kondrashov, Peter; Agadjanian, Alexandre K. (2012). "A nearly complete skeleton of Ernanodon (Mammalia, Palaeanodonta) from Mongolia: morphofunctional analysis". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 32 (5): 983–1001. Bibcode:2012JVPal..32..983K. doi:10.1080/02724634.2012.694319. ISSN   0272-4634. S2CID   86059673.
  6. ↑ Philippe Gaubert, Agostinho Antunes, Hao Meng, Lin Miao, Stéphane Peigné, Fabienne Justy, Flobert Njiokou, Sylvain Dufour, Emmanuel Danquah, Jayanthi Alahakoon, Erik Verheyen, William T Stanley, Stephen J O'Brien, Warren E Johnson, Shu-Jin Luo (2018) "The Complete Phylogeny of Pangolins: Scaling Up Resources for the Molecular Tracing of the Most Trafficked Mammals on Earth" Journal of Heredity, Volume 109, Issue 4, Pages 347–359
  7. ↑ Sean P. Heighton, Rémi Allio, Jérôme Murienne, Jordi Salmona, Hao Meng, Céline Scornavacca, Armanda D. S. Bastos, Flobert Njiokou, Darren W. Pietersen, Marie-Ka Tilak, Shu-Jin Luo, Frédéric Delsuc, Philippe Gaubert (2023.) "Pangolin genomes offer key insights and resources for the world's most trafficked wild mammals"
  8. ↑ Schlitter, D.A. (2005). "Order Pholidota". In Wilson, D.E.; Reeder, D.M (eds.). Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 530–531. ISBN   978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC   62265494.
  9. ↑ du Toit, Z.; du Plessis, M.; Dalton, D. L.; Jansen, R.; Paul Grobler, J.; Kotzé, A. (2017). "Mitochondrial genomes of African pangolins and insights into evolutionary patterns and phylogeny of the family Manidae". BMC Genomics. 18 (1): 746. doi: 10.1186/s12864-017-4140-5 . PMC   5609056 . PMID   28934931.
  10. ↑ "Two-Million-Year-Old Pangolin Fossil Found in Romania | Sci.News". 12 January 2022.
  11. ↑ "S2A3 Biographical Database of Southern African Science [Johannes Smuts]" . Retrieved May 28, 2018.
  12. ↑ Palmer, T.S. (1904). "Index Generum Mammalium: a List of the Genera and Families of Mammals". North American Fauna. 23: 635. doi: 10.3996/nafa.23.0001 .
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