NIGHT OF THE "TRENGGILING"

Usually, Sunday nights in the village are kind of boring, but last night we had an unexpected visitor. I could hear a bunch of people outside talking, and there seemed to be a crowd. Curiously, I went outside to see what was going on and discovered that one of the local staff had captured a "Trenggiling"!

The "Trenggiling" was inside of a rice sack and was moving about like crazy! Not knowing what a "Trenggiling" was, let alone looked like, made it really interesting to look inside the sack, and a little scarry, because in my mind I thought it was something like a badger. In fact a "Trenggiling" is nothing like a badger at all, it is more like a...

Popple?

Big Scarry Lizard?
Armadillo?
Nope...it's a kind of Anteater.

In English it's called a Pangolin, but I had to look it up online to find out. Apparently, they live in several South Asian Country's and parts of Africa, but I've never seen one before. They can emit a smell like a skunk when they're scared, this guy didn't stink at the time, but I'm sure he did when they caught him. I wish this story had a happy ending, but it doesn't. He ended up as dinner by the locals. Too bad, it's the first real wildlife I have seen on Nias, and I suspect there arn't too many around. The Chinese use them also for traditional medicine and their skin is often sought after as a remody of some sort. Weird little critter.