What it is
The Sunda, or Malayan, pangolin is the most widespread Asian pangolin, more arboreal than the Chinese species. IUCN listed it as Critically Endangered in 2019, inferring an 80 percent decline over about three generations from trade and local reports. No robust population total exists. Hundreds of thousands of animals have appeared in seizure records since the 1970s; that is a minimum of what was taken, not a living count.
Range
Mainland Southeast Asia, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and some smaller islands. Already rare or gone in large parts of that map.
What happened
As Chinese pangolins thinned, traffickers shifted to Sunda animals. Forest loss for oil palm and pulp adds a second cut. Night surveys still find them in a few protected forests; that is not abundance.
When / status
Critically Endangered now.
Human role
International scale trade plus local meat hunting.
Sources
IUCN Red List (Manis javanica, CR, 2019); Challender et al. trade syntheses; CITES Appendix I.