Pholidota Pholidota Pangolins Only seven living species of mammal are included in the Pholidota, the pangolins or scaly anteaters. There are four species in Africa and three in southeast Asia. Pangolins feed only on burrowing social insects , such as ants and termites. Pangolins have stout, strong, clawed limbs, used for digging into ant and termite mounds.
Pangolins completely lack teeth, and the lower jaw is a small bladelike bone.
Perhaps the most obvious feature of pangolins is their scaly epidermal armor, making them look a bit like pine cones with legs. Confronted with a threat, pangolins curl very tightly into balls. Pangolins resemble armadillos and anteaters, which also feed on insects and have long tongues, strong digging limbs, and reduced or missing teeth. Yet pangolins lack certain highly distinctive skeletal features seen in armadillos and anteaters. Once pangolins were grouped with armadillos and anteaters in the Edentata, but today the similarities between pangolins and these others are considered to result from convergent evolution .