What kind of social-insect-eating mammal is stranger than a numbat? Well, a pangolin, for one. From The Life of Mammals.
For more on the pangolin's prey, check out one of the newest additions to the ScienceBlogs family, Myrmecos.
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I imagine that a pangolin is what would happen if Jim Henson and Wes Anderson had teamed up. That was awesome.
I wasn't aware that pangolins could walk bipedally. I'd always thought they "knuckle-walked" like a ground sloth. Very interesting video. Pangolins are BY FAR my favorite myceophageous mammals.
I'm interested as to how bipedal the other species of pangolin are compared to the ground pangolin; if I'm not wrong, the other 7 species of pangolin are also capable of bipedality, although they also tend to be more quadrupedal than the ground pangolin, employing knuckle-walking like giant anteaters and/or walking on the side of the palm like ground sloths.
Cameron McCormick also wrote about bipedalism in pangolins.
The other species are also said to be more arboreal than the ground pangolin, although I must say that the idea of a giant pangolin climbing a tree is quite incredible. Interestingly enough, the 3-banded armadillos are supposedly nearly bipedal, trotting on the tips of their foreclaws.
I'm also quite miffed that most documentary footage on pangolins is restricted entirely to the ground pangolin, while all the other species are very much neglected. Hmmph.