To celebrate World Pangolin Day, we pulled together a few interesting facts about these remarkable Asian and African mammals to raise awareness and impress your pangolin-party pals. Pangolins are shy, solitary, nocturnal animals that range in size from about three to 73 pounds and make their homes in forests, grasslands, and savannahs. Although the eight species of pangolins are also known as “scaly anteaters”, and do indeed eat ants as well as termites and other insects, they are genetically more closely related to cats, dogs, and bears. However, unlike carnivores, pangolins do not have teeth so can’t chew their food. Their stomachs are lined with keratinous spines which, combined with stones they swallow, help to pulverize the insects they’ve captured with their long sticky tongues. A pangolin tongue can be up to an impressive 15 inches long, which comes in handy when probing inside of an anthill or termite mound in search of dinner. Pangolins can eat up to 20,000 ants and termites a day (that’s 70 million a year), helping to protect forests from destruction.

Most of a pangolin’s body is covered by overlapping scales also made from keratin, the same protein that forms human hair, nails, and rhino horn. These sharp-edged scales, which make up about 20 percent of a pangolin’s body weight, protect it from predators. When under attack a pangolin curls into a tight ball and extends its scales to shield its vulnerable undersides.

Because their meat is considered a delicacy, and their scales are believed to have magical and medical properties, pangolins have become the most trafficked animal in the world. Sadly, as a result, all eight species are currently listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as threatened with extinction. Check out this rare footage of a giant pangolin doing a bit of tree-hugging and find out what the African Wildlife Foundation is doing to help ensure the world’s only scaly mammal is not lost forever.