Abstract: Exploring the dietary habits of wild animals offers crucial insights for evaluating their survival prospects and ecosystem functions. Chinese pangolin, Manis pentadactyla, plays the key role in maintaining ecosystem balance. The analysis of its diet composition can deepen the understanding of the feeding strategy of pangolins and provide data support for species conservation. In this study, the fecal samples of wild Chinese pangolin individuals in wet (from April to September, n=4) and dry seasons (from October to January, n=6) were used to explore the diet composition and its seasonal variation based on high-throughput sequencing and DNA macro-barcoding. The results showed that: (1) A total of 478706 effective sequences and 597 effective OTUs were obtained. 37.35%, 40.54%, 8.54%, 10.39%, and 3.18% OTUs were identified at class, order, family, genus, and species levels, respectively. (2) The diet composition of Chinese pangolin included 14 orders, 17 families, 17 genera, and 18 species. Blattaria were the main food for Chinese pangolin, accounting for 81.11% of sequences. (3) The results of α and β diversity analysis showed no difference in food composition richness between dry and wet seasons, but significant difference in species composition structure. (4) According to the results of heterogyna, Chinese pangolin equally preyed on termites (relative read abundance (RRA) = 32.14%, 40.48%, 44.38%, 44.48%) and ants (RRA = 40.41%, 49.73%, 54.61%, 55.30%) in wet season, while intensively on termites (RRA = 87.95%, 90.07%, 89.88%, 99.95%) in dry season. Furthermore, Odontotermes, and Carebara and Pheidole were the main diet components for Chinese pangolin in dry and wet seasons, respectively. In conclusion, there was seasonal variation of food composition for Chinese pangolin, with termites and ants being the main prey.

Key words: Mains pentadactyla, diet composition, seasonal variation, high-throughput sequencing, DNA macrobarcoding