Google is paying tribute to the world’s most trafficked mammal on Valentine’s Day.
To raise awareness for the pangolin, a strange-looking creature resembling a pine cone that’s prized by the Chinese for its supposed healing properties, the search giant created a series of Valentine’s Day-themed doodles. The interactive games have been featured on Google’s homepage since Feb. 11, in the week leading up to World Pangolin Day on Feb. 18.
In traditional Chinese medicine, the pangolin’s body parts, including its scales, are believed to treat asthma, cancer, and reproductive problems. As a result, the animal is widely traded in Asia’s black markets, especially in China. Between 2011 and 2013, a conservation group estimated that more than 200,000 pangolins were killed. In September, however, international trading of the species was fully banned, and just three months later, China seized its largest haul ever of pangolin scales, at 3.1 metric tons (3.4 tons) , in Shanghai.
Google created four Valentine’s-themed pangolin games, each set in one of the animal’s natural habitats—Ghana, India, China, and the Philippines—where it has to collect certain elements to create the perfect gift for its mate. In Ghana, for example, the pangolin gathers cocoa beans to make a chocolate cake. The pangolin also collects music notes in India to learn a song, ribbons in China for a lantern, and flowers in the Philippines to make a bouquet.
It’s no surprise that Google would create a doodle to celebrate Valentine’s Day, but the company used the opportunity to raise awareness of the pangolin’s plight. The effect can be seen on Google Trends (above), which shows interest in certain topics over time based on search queries. Looking at search trends over the last five years, the number of queries for pangolin peaked this week. “We hope that by playing this Doodle game, you can learn a bit more about these wonderful creatures,” Google engineer Jordan Thompson wrote in a Feb. 13 blog post.