By Mark Stone, Asia Correspondent in Vietnam
The elephant, the tiger and the rhino are the undisputed "celebrities" of the world's endangered species, but they are by no means the animals most at risk of extinction.
The most hunted animal in the world is a creature so sought after by Chinese and Vietnamese consumers that, as Prince William recently remarked, it could be extinct before most people have ever heard of it.
As the Duke of Cambridge uses his state visit to China to press for an end to the country's massive illegal trade in wildlife, Sky News has been given access to a unique British-funded conservation facility fighting to save the pangolin.
Prince William is urging an end to China's illegal wildlife trade
A cross between an armadillo and an artichoke with legs, the pangolin is the most extraordinary of creatures.
The only mammal covered in scales; it is a little larger than a cat; it is shy, harmless and oddly enchanting.
The pangolin conservation centre is run by a 33-year-old Vietnamese man called Nguyan Van Thai, the director of a charity called Save Vietnam's Wildlife.
The centre's only permanent funding comes from Newquay Zoo in the UK.
"I remember pangolin everywhere in this forest when I was young," Thai says as we swap our shoes for special disinfected boots to enter the facility.
We are inside the Cuc Phuong National Park in northern Vietnam. This 220,000-hectare rainforest was once one of the pangolins many homes across Asia and Africa.
It is one o'clock in the morning; the most appropriate time for Thai to show us some of the 12 nocturnal pangolins he is rehabilitating at the centre.
The purpose-built 'pangolarium' is lit only by red bulbs.
A crate of live pangolins destined for China were confiscated on the border
There are four large enclosures, each a little smaller than a squash court. Underneath each one is a small bed box with access to the enclosure via a drain pipe.
Inside one of the boxes is Lucky, one of the first pangolins to arrive at the centre ten years ago.
He and the others will not be released to the wild again until the risk that they could be re-poached has gone.
Thai explains the pangolin is a creature invincible to everything in the wild except man.
On his phone he plays some footage of a crate of live pangolins destined for China but confiscated on the border in December.
They are curled into their trademark scaled balls, their defence mechanism.
The poachers who snared them in the forest have force fed them gravel to increase their weight and value.
Some 100,000 pangolins a year are hunted and trafficked like this.
This is the recorded figure. Many more will go untraced.
Bags of pangolin scales were readily available
Conserving the pangolin is incredibly hard because they seldom survive in captivity. Only five zoos globally have them.
Thai is one of the few people who knows how to care for them, having spent three months 'living nocturnal' with them in the jungle.
We drive two hours north of the forest to Hanoi.
Thai wants to show us where many of the pangolin end up: medicine shops and restaurants.
On one street lined with traditional medicine shops it takes just five minutes to be offered a bag of pangolin scales.
It is claimed the scales can cure cancer and help mothers produce breast milk but there is no scientific evidence to back that up.
We are offered a bag: £50 per 100g.
Across town we visit a number of restaurants.
Despite pangolin meat being illegal, it is on the menu complete with a picture. The waitress boasts that government officials like to eat it.
The tragedy is that, like elephants and their tusks, the rarer the pangolin becomes, the more sought after it is.
Despite pangolin meat being illegal it is on restaurant menus
Increasingly prosperous middle classes in China and Vietnam are the problem, Thai tells us.
Owning ivory and eating pangolin are now symbols of status.
Back at the conservation centre Thai has recruited a new member of staff. Heidi Quine is an animal behavioural expert.
She said: "The very real possibility exists that they are going to be eaten to extinction ... before most of us have ever even heard of them.
"If we don't save the pangolin then what else do we let go?
"There is absolutely no reason that these mammals need to be the most trafficked on the face of the planet."
:: Click here to watch the Sky News extended investigation.
:: To find out more about Thai's work to save the pangolin, visit www.savevietnamswildlife.org
