Pangolin

Pangolins are a group of scaly, insect-eating mammals found across parts of Africa and Asia, unique among mammals for being covered in overlapping plates made of keratin, the same material found in human fingernails, which they use for defense by curling into a tight ball when threatened. They feed almost exclusively on ants and termites, using a long, sticky tongue that can extend further than the animal's own body length to extract insects from nests, and they lack teeth entirely, instead grinding food in a muscular stomach. Pangolins are largely nocturnal and solitary, and they are widely regarded as the most heavily trafficked wild mammals in the world, hunted for their scales and meat, which has driven several of the eight recognized pangolin species toward critically endangered status.