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Herbivore-like retention patterns in the Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla)
Hongmei Yan1, Fuyu An1, Kai Wang1
1Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Silviculture, Protection, and Utilization, Guangdong, Academy of Forestry, Guangzhou, 510520, China.
None:
As a myrmecophagous specialist, the Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) faces digestive challenges due to the chitin-rich diet of ants and termites, especially without teeth to chew. To investigate its digestive strategy, we analyzed the distribution of fecal particle sizes in wild and captive pangolins and measured the mean retention time (MRT) of particles and solutes of food in captive specimens. The mean particle size (dMEAN) in wild pangolin feces (0.452 mm) was slightly larger than that in captive pangolins (0.387 mm), but the difference was not statistically significant. Particle and solute digesta markers showed similar excretion patterns, but exhibited different retention times (particle MRT: 52.58-82.02 h; solute MRT: 29.99-52.81 h), resulting in a selectivity factor of 1.64. These results suggest that this extended retention, facilitated by intestinal elongation and potential gastric separation mechanisms, potentially represents an evolutionary adaptation to cope with a diet composed of both easily digestible components and chitinous exoskeleton relatively refractory to digestion.
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