[5] It is closely related to the Chinese pangolin, although the Malayan species is larger, lighter in colour, and has shorter fore claws.

It has thick and powerful claws to dig into the soils in search of ant nests or to tear into termite mounds.

Unlike other mammals, pangolins are covered by rows of scales (made of keratin) and fibrous hair to protect them from danger.

It is important to the traditions of Orang Asli in the Malay Peninsula and indigenous peoples of Sabah like the Kadazan, Dusun, Murut and Rungus.

Scales are made into rings as charms believed to protect against rheumatic fever, and pangolin meat is eaten by indigenous peoples.

Despite having protected status almost everywhere in its range, an illegal international trade, largely driven by Chinese buyers, has led to a rapid decrease in population.

[1] As of 2016, all eight pangolin species are listed on CITES Appendix I, which prohibits commercial international trade of wild-caught specimens or their body parts.

[9] In the past, captive breeding efforts have yielded little to no success, due in part to the difficulty of rehabilitation, as well as pangolins' nocturnal nature.

[8] While hunting is the primary threat to pangolins across most of Southeast Asia, habitat loss and vehicle collisions are their main dangers in Singapore.

[9] A metagenomic study published in 2019 previously revealed that SARS-CoV, the strain of the virus that causes SARS, was the most widely distributed coronavirus among a sample of Sunda pangolins.

[21] On 7 February 2020, it was announced that researchers from Guangzhou had discovered a pangolin sample with a viral nucleic acid sequence "99% identical" to SARS-CoV-2.

[22] When released, the results clarified that "the receptor-binding domain of the S protein of the newly discovered Pangolin-CoV is virtually identical to that of 2019-nCoV, with one amino acid difference.

[26] This is insufficient to prove pangolins to be the intermediate host; in comparison, the SARS virus responsible for the 2002–2004 outbreak shared 99.8% of its genome with a known civet coronavirus.