Found on both the Asian and African continents, the pangolin, or scaly anteater, is being eaten off the face of the earth, wildlife researchers say.

The world's only known mammal with scales has been put on the "Red List of Threatened Species" maintained by the globally-recognized nonprofit International Union for Conservation of Nature, which works to address some of the world's greatest challenges such as climate change, sustainable development and food security through biodiversity.

Despite a commercial trade ban for wild-caught pangolins in Asia, consumers are willing to pay increasingly high prices for the animal's meat, which is sold as luxury food.

"All eight pangolin species are now listed as threatened with extinction, largely because they are being illegally traded to China and Viet Nam," professor Jonathan Baillie, co-chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission's Pangolin Specialist Group and conservation programs director at the Zoological Society of London, said in a news release. "In the 21st Century we really should not be eating species to extinction -- there is simply no excuse for allowing this illegal trade to continue."

The most illegally traded mammal in the world, pangolin resembles an artichoke with legs and a tail.

However, its scales, which protect it from natural predators, are no match against poachers, said IUCN officials, adding more than an estimated one million of the creatures have been caught in the wild over the last decade.

Chinese and Sunda pangolins are now classified as "Critically Endangered." Meanwhile, as the populations of the four Asian pangolin species have dropped, traders have ventured to Africa to meet the growing demand.

In traditional Chinese medicine, pangolin scales are also believed to treat a wide variety of conditions including psoriasis and poor circulation.

As an answer to the pangolin's recent status change, the IUCN SSC Pangolin Specialist Group has launched an action plan that lays out steps needed to better deter illegal trade and secure pangolins in Asia and Africa.

"Our global strategy to halt the decline of the world's pangolins needs to be urgently implemented. A vital first step is for the Chinese and Vietnamese governments to conduct an inventory of their pangolin scale stocks and make this publically available to prove that wild-caught pangolins are no longer supplying the commercial trade," said Dan Challender, co-chair of the IUCN SSC Pangolin Specialist Group.