By digging burrows with their powerful claws, they turn soil and cycle nutrients. Their abandoned burrows become home for many reptiles, birds and other small mammals. A recent study adds new ...

Deep in the unyielding darkness of a Brazilian cave, a pale, blind ... the long-abandoned burrows of extinct megafauna, such as giant ground sloths or giant armadillos, researchers say.

As insectivorous, burrowing mammals, pangolins play a key role in our ecosystem by controlling insect populations, recycling soil nutrients and sheltering other animals in their abandoned burrows.