Pangolins

The pangolin is an animal that is completely covered in scales. They kind of look like an artichoke. The pangolin can live in the trees or on the ground, depending on which of the eight species of pangolin you are looking at. Four of the species live in Asia and the other four live in Africa. As of now the pangolin is the highest poached animal in the world because its meat is considered a delicatessen. If a pangolin is threatened, it will curl up into a ball and use the scales made of keratin for protection from predators. Their diet consists mainly of ants and they have a long tongue that reach into the ground or trees to dig up ant nests. A couple cool facts about the pangolin are that they can constrict their ears and nostrils to prevent ants from crawling in and they also do not have teeth. Instead, they have a very muscular stomach that is filled with spines that they use to break down their food. They also swallow rocks to help digest and break up the food. Pangolins are solitarely, bipedal (so they look very funny when they walk, almost like a t-rex), and they have huge claws. Here is a phylogenic tree showing panglins closest relatives are Carnivora (meat eating mammals):

Since pangolins and humans are both mammals, we are quite similar genetically and share over 90% of DNA. Since we share so much genetic information, it is understandable that a virus like SARS COV-2 is able to jump from one species to another.

Here is a also a very informative video: