Paucimannosylation has been extensively studied and documented in insects, nematodes and plants over the past decades. The paucimannosidic proteins are constitutively and broadly expressed across tissues in these organisms under normal physiology. It is widely recognised that paucimannosylation is a central component of the glycoproteome in these "lower" organisms. Recently, paucimannosylation was reported to form an unconventional type of protein N-glycosylation in vertebrates. It has been proposed that "higher" species including humans, rodents and other mammals use paucimannosylation in a more tissue- and context-restricted manner in pathophysiological conditions including cancer, pathogen infection, inflammation and stemness.