A nearly 190-year-old pangolin specimen sitting on a museum shelf in London has helped scientists confirm the existence of a distinct pangolin species living in Nepal and northern India. Researchers used DNA extracted from the historic specimen, originally collected in 1836, to settle a long-standing taxonomic debate over whether the Himalayan pangolin was simply a subspecies of the Chinese pangolin or a separate species altogether. The findings, published in the journal Communications Biology, confirm that the animal should be classified as Manis aurita, restoring a name first given to it nearly two centuries ago. What's striking is the timeline itself: a name given in 1836, set aside for generations, and only now confirmed correct using techniques Hodgson couldn't have imagined when he first collected the specimen.
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