190-Year-Old Museum DNA Reveals a New Pangolin Species in Nepal and India

Researchers have confirmed a previously unrecognised pangolin species, Manis aurita, living in Nepal and Northern India, according to a study published in the journal Communications Biology. Pangolins, mammals covered in overlapping scales, are considered the most highly trafficked mammals in the world. "We can't protect what we do not know. Now that we have confirmed that this other species of pangolin exists, we can use that information to help protect these endangered animals," said Anderson Feijo of the Field Museum, a co-corresponding author of the study.

The clarification traces back to 2025, when another research team found that animals previously grouped as Chinese pangolins were actually two species. One lives in China, and a mountain-dwelling form ranges across the Himalayan foothills of Nepal, India, Bhutan and Myanmar; the team named it Manis indoburmanica. Feijo's team was already investigating pangolin evolution. They found that a pangolin named Manis aurita in 1836 had since been reclassified as a subspecies of the Chinese pangolin, raising the question of whether aurita and indoburmanica were the same animal. The Natural History Museum in London sequenced DNA directly from the 1836 type specimen of aurita, nearly 190 years old, and it matched modern Himalayan pangolin samples. Under the taxonomic rule that the earliest valid name takes precedence, Manis aurita is now the correct name for the species.

Compared with the Chinese pangolin, the Himalayan pangolin has a bigger body, a longer tail and smaller ears, the researchers found, and the two species' ranges do not overlap. The name aurita refers to the animal's distinctive ears.

Pangolin scales are trafficked for use in traditional Chinese medicine, and authorities usually recover only scales rather than whole animals. The DNA methods used in the study could let conservationists identify which species a batch of trafficked scales came from, and trace the regions under the heaviest poaching pressure.