HOME-RANGE SIZE AND DISTRIBUTION IN A WILD POPULATION OF CAPE-PANGOLINS, MANIS-TEMMINCKII, IN NORTH-WEST ZIMBABWE

The aim of this study was to estimate the size of the home range used by individual Cape pangolins (Manis temminckii). The study was conduct ed in 1991-95 at Sengwa Wildlife Research Institute, Gokwe, Zimbabwe. Radiotelemetry was used to repeatedly locate study pangolins. Home ran ge area was estimated from the location of the burrows used by each pa ngolin. It was established that pangolins must be tracked for 85+ days to generate a reliable estimate of home range. The size of home range s, determined from 1141 tracking days of data for 10 pangolins (3.0-15 .8 kg body mass) that were each tracked for at least 85 days, was from 0.17 to 11.07 km(2). Larger (older) pangolins used more burrows and h ad larger home ranges than smaller (younger) pangolins, The data indic ate that large adult males had larger home ranges than large adult fem ales. Within each sex, the home ranges were adjacent to each other wit h only slight overlap at the boundaries. There was clear overlap of ho me ranges between males and females.