Mitochondrial DNA analysis of critically endangered Chinese Pangolins (Manis pentadactyla) from Nepal

Abstract

Chinese Pangolins (Manis pentadactyla) are Critically Endangered and one of the most illegally traded mammals globally. We generated first COI sequences from five individuals of this species from Nepal. BLASTn search of our 600 bp sequences at GenBank showed pair-wise identity between 99.17% and 100% to M. pentadactyla. There were three haplotypes and a total of five variable sites among five M. pentadactyla sequences. Neighbor-joining tree revealed that all M. pentadactyla from Nepal clustered into same group further splitting into two sub-groups albeit with low bootstrap value, suggesting potential multiple geographic origins. The K2P distance was 0.3% within group and 0.7% between four sequences from Bhaktapur and Kavrepalanchok districts (Mape2, Mape3, Mape5 and Mape6) and museum sample (Mape10). This study has generated reference samples for M. pentadactyla from Nepal and will be helpful in understanding dynamics of illegal trade of this species and in successful identification of M. pentadactyla from Nepal even in the absence of intact specimens.

Keywords:

• COI
• DNA barcode
• illegal trade
• Pangolin

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the Department of Forests and Soil Conservation, Nepal (Permit no: 53- 2074/2075) and Division Forest Offices, Kavrepalanchok and Bhaktapur for providing permit to conduct the study. We thank Natural History Museum, Nepal for providing tissue sample and Centre for Molecular Dynamics, Nepal for conducting laboratory analysis of the samples. We are grateful to community forests in Bhaktapur and Kavrepalanchok for their cooperation during field work. We also thank Shyam Sharma, Narayan Koirala, Bakhat Rawat and Nischal Shrestha for field assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

We collected samples under Permit no: 53- 2074/2075 issued by the Department of Forests and Soil Conservation, Nepal. Five COI sequences for M. pentadactyla from this study are deposited at the GenBank (Accession numbers: MT712655, MT712656, MT712657, MT712658 and MT712659). Genbank: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/ where our data has been stored.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the Russell E Train Education of Nature Program (EFN), World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), USA and the University Grant Commission (UGC), Nepal.