ナショナルジオグラフィックさんのインスタグラム写真 - (ナショナルジオグラフィックInstagram)「Photo by @brentstirton | Today is World Pangolin Day. Here’s one of these unique and fascinating animals in the loving arms of a caregiver from the #tikkihywoodtrust in Zimbabwe. Tragically, this rescued animal represents the world’s most trafficked mammal, with over a million pangolins disappearing into the Asian trade over the last ten years. Pangolin scale seizures have been huge in recent years, with a pattern that seems to suggest it is superseding ivory as a business for traffickers. Recent findings by Chinese researchers have established that pangolins carry viruses that are closely related to 2019-nCoV, the current coronavirus. Two researchers at South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou suggest the pangolin is a potential source of 2019-nCoV, based on a genetic comparison of coronaviruses taken from the animals and from humans infected in the outbreak. The sequences are 99% similar. China is already addressing the illegal pangolin trade; as of January, the country’s national insurance program no longer covers medicines containing pangolin products. Now with the evidence that pangolins could be a vector for the current outbreak, China is seriously reconsidering its wildlife consumption. Given the ongoing cost of this outbreak, this may be one of the few silver linings. #pangolins #virus #WorldPangolinDay #conservation #endangeredspecies」2月15日 20時39分