Illegal trade of Indian Pangolin (Manis crassicaudata): Genetic study from scales based on mitochondrial genes

Indian Pangolin (Manis crassicaudata), an endangered mammalian species under IUCN red list. In India, small population of Chines Pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) are also present in the eastern part and protected under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 as a schedule I species along with Indian Pangolin. In national and international market the Indian Pangolin are highly in trade principally for its meat and scales. In curbing illegal wildlife, trade of Indian Pangolin on national and international level wildlife DNA forensics plays an important role in the identification of species from the seized material. We received n = 15 wildlife seizures assumed to be the scales of Pangolin from different state forest and the custom department for molecular analysis. The seizures sequenced for two mitochondrial genes i.e. Cyt b and 16S rRNA, which are often used in wildlife DNA forensic to species identification. The sequences thus generated from these seizures compared to the NCBI database through blast search tool and our laboratory-generated references, yielding 100% similarity with Indian Pangolin. We identified twelve (n = 12) Cyt b and five (n = 5) 16S rRNA species specific SNPs, fixed in Indian Pangolin. This study shows, the importance of authenticated references, DNA sequence data availability, highlighting the application of DNA forensics in identifying species from scales.