Meet the olinguito

[Commander CMG]

• U.S. scientists said the carnivorous olinguito looks like a cross between a house cat and a teddy bear but is a member of the same family as raccoons
  
• The creature, which has wooly orange brown, fur lives in the cloud forests of Colombia and Ecuador, and is named 'neblina,' which means fog in Spanish
  
• Scientists at the Smithsonian said the mammal is most active at night, eats mainly fruit, rarely comes out of the trees and has one baby at a time
  

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[Keel M.]

'The discovery of the olinguito shows us that the world is not yet completely explored, its most basic secrets not yet revealed,' said Dr Kristofer Helgen, curator of mammals at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

It's not that this was previously unknown animal, but that it was known, yet mistaken for something else that looks quite similar.

Perhaps it's time to look at what we know and reevaluate everything and make sure there isn't more of this mistaken identity going on.

[Ealdwita]

I thought an 'olinguito' was some sort of chocolate biscuit!

[Bavarian Raven]

I want it lol

[Still Waters]

The black and white photo reminds me (a bit) of a Koala.

[DecoNoir]

Oh he looks so cute! You know, before he rips my face apart and feasts on my corpes like some kind of hellhound.

[Commander CMG]

Oh he looks so cute! You know, before he rips my face apart and feasts on my corpes like some kind of hellhound.

That first image does look like he is going to do just that and he has a nice set of claws on the little fellow.

[Taun]

The face reminds me of a cross between a ferret and a raccoon (without the mask)...

[Ealdwita]

The face reminds me of a cross between a ferret and a raccoon (without the mask)...

My first thoughts were of a male Manx Grockfoddler (minus the beak, feathers, horns and snorkel)

[Taun]

My first thoughts were of a male Manx Grockfoddler (minus the beak, feathers, horns and snorkel)

I'll have to google Grockfoddler (you should add this to the "funny sounding word thread)...

Internet keeps wanting to send me to "Toddler Rock"... (not that it wouldn't actually help me... )...

Edited August 15, 2013 by Taun

[Four Winds]

a couple more pictures in this article

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/15/world/americas/new-mammal-smithsonian/index.html

[brlesq1]

Cute li'l fella, isn't he? But I agree--the creature was misnamed. They make it sound like it had never been seen before. That's not a discovery--that's a mistake.