2.1 Sick pangolins and sample collection
During July to August 2018, four sick wild pangolins were sent to the Jinhua Wildlife Rescue Station of Zhejiang province, China (Fig. 1). At the station, these pangolins received laboratory and clinical examination and subsequent treatment. Although three of the animals died, one recovered following 2 weeks of treatment. Blood and tissue samples were collected from all four animals, and ticks were collected from two (Supplementary Table S1). Pangolins and ticks were initially identified to the species level by experienced field biologists and later confirmed by analyzing sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome b (mt-cyt b) gene or mitochondrial 16S rDNA gene as described previously (Chen et al. 2012; Guo et al. 2013).
Figure 1.  Sampling locations (red circles) of sick pangolins from Zhejiang province, China. This study was reviewed and approved by the ethics committee of the National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention of the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). All procedures for autopsy and sample collection were in strict according to the guidelines for the Laboratory Animal Use and Care from the China CDC (SYXK(Jing)2017-0021).