The Eight
Pangolins diverged from other placental mammals 80 million years ago. They survived mass extinctions, ice ages, and continental drift. They did not survive contact with organised wildlife crime. Here are the eight species that remain — and what it will take to protect each of them.
All four African pangolin species are listed by IUCN. Three are increasingly targeted as Asian species become harder to source.
Smutsia temminckii
The only pangolin species native to South Africa, and the one where Alpha-Panga begins. Temminck's is a solitary, nocturnal ground-dweller that forages for ants and termites across savanna, woodland, and dry grassland. Adults reach 35–45 cm body length and can live 20+ years in safe conditions.
It is the most accessible African pangolin for SA-based field research — which is why Phase 1 focuses here. The platform, methodology, and partnerships we build protecting Temminck's in Gauteng and Limpopo will transfer directly to other species in later phases.
Smutsia gigantea
The largest of the eight species, reaching up to 140 cm in length and 35 kg. The giant ground pangolin is the most understudied of all pangolins — its dense forest habitat and strict nocturnality have made systematic population surveys nearly impossible. What data exists is alarming.
The DRC, Cameroon, and Gabon hold the largest remaining populations. All three countries face severe governance challenges for wildlife law enforcement. Giant pangolins are increasingly targeted as Chinese and Sunda pangolin populations have collapsed, redirecting trafficking demand to African species.
Phataginus tricuspis
Africa's most common pangolin — a title that means less every year. The white-bellied pangolin is arboreal, using a prehensile tail to navigate forest canopy at night. It is the species most frequently traded across African borders, partly because its forest-edge habitat overlaps with human settlements.
Camera trap AI deployment in West African forest-edge zones is technically feasible with the current Alpha-Panga stack. Phase 3 will adapt the Temminck's monitoring framework to arboreal detection — a significant but solvable computer-vision challenge.
Phataginus tetradactyla
The smallest of the African pangolins — adults rarely exceed 35 cm — and the most arboreal. The black-bellied pangolin spends most of its life in forest canopy, descending rarely. Its long prehensile tail makes it a specialist climber adapted to primary rainforest.
Its IUCN status of Vulnerable currently places it below the endangered threshold, but the trend is downward. Deforestation in Central Africa's Congo Basin is eliminating habitat at a rate that outpaces legal protection. The species' arboreal habit makes ground-based camera trap monitoring ineffective — Phase 3 will require canopy-deployed sensors.
All four Asian species are the primary drivers of the global pangolin trade. Three are Critically Endangered — one step from extinction in the wild.
Manis crassicaudata
The Indian pangolin ranges across the Indian subcontinent from the Himalayan foothills to Sri Lanka. It is a ground-dweller, digging burrows up to 6 metres long, and is well-adapted to both forest and open grassland. Adults can weigh up to 16 kg.
India has strengthened its wildlife protection legislation significantly since 2018, and pangolin seizures at Indian borders represent one of the better-documented datasets in the field. Phase 4 will explore formal partnerships with Indian wildlife NGOs to extend the Alpha-Panga platform to subcontinent conditions.
Manis pentadactyla
The Chinese pangolin is functionally extinct across most of its historic range. Decades of intensive poaching to supply Chinese traditional medicine markets — where pangolin scale is prescribed for everything from lactation disorders to cancer — have reduced populations to scattered, isolated remnants in remote highland forest.
China's 2020 ban on pangolin scale in official traditional medicine pharmacopoeias was a significant regulatory step. Enforcement of that ban is the critical variable. The Chinese pangolin's collapse is the proximate cause of redirected trafficking demand to African species — making its recovery a global conservation priority, not only a regional one.
Manis javanica
The Sunda pangolin is the most heavily traded of all eight species — and arguably the one closest to a tipping point in the wild. It has been detected in more individual trafficking seizures than any other pangolin, and its range states — Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand — are all major trafficking transit points.
Commercial-scale poaching has hollowed out populations that were once considered stable. The Sunda pangolin's status was uplisted from Endangered to Critically Endangered in 2014 specifically because of documented trade pressure. Phase 4 will include Sunda pangolin monitoring in partnership with Southeast Asian conservation organisations.
Manis culionensis
The Philippine pangolin is the most range-restricted of all eight species — endemic to the Palawan island group in the western Philippines. This geographic limitation makes it both the easiest to study and the most vulnerable: a single disease outbreak, habitat loss event, or trafficking surge could eliminate the species in one administrative region.
Palawan is protected as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, and local conservation enforcement is stronger than in many other Southeast Asian jurisdictions. But the species' restricted range and continued demand from nearby trading networks mean Critically Endangered status is well-justified. Phase 4 will include engagement with Palawan-based conservation groups.
The Shared Story
Despite their geographic separation, all eight pangolin species face the same enemy: a transnational trafficking network that sources from Africa and Asia and sells into Chinese and Vietnamese demand markets. The network adapts. When Chinese pangolin populations collapsed, demand shifted to Sunda, then to African species. No single-species intervention breaks this chain.
The Alpha-Panga platform is designed for exactly this multi-species reality. The same edge AI hardware, the same vision models, the same alert infrastructure — deployed to different terrains, different species, different conservation partners — but one unified system. Phase 1 in South Africa is not a pilot. It is the first deployment of a technology that will eventually watch all eight.
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