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Olinguito (Bassaricyon neblina); Bellavista, Ecuador
In 2013, two US-American scientists discovered, based on specimens from several museums in the USA, that apparently a new species had been hiding among the archives. DNA tests confirmed that some of the specimens in the museums were neither kinkajous nor olingos, but actually a hitherto not described species. It turned out to be the first new carnivoran mammal described in the Western Hemisphere in 35 years.
In February 2018, when we visited the Bellavista Lodge in Ecuador, one of those scientists and a research team from Japan was present at the lodge as well, conducting studies about this relative of the olingo named olinguito. A small band of individuals was roaming the cloud forests surrounding the lodge, and some of those would come nightly to snatch bananas from a feeder, undeterred by a bright spotlight that the researchers used.
I did not manage to take actual photographs, but filming with my camera worked; this lower-resolution image is actually a still from one of the videos I took.
The olinguito /oʊlɪŋˈɡiːtoʊ/ is a mammal of the raccoon family Procyonidae that lives in montane forests in the Andes of western Colombia and Ecuador. It was classified as belonging to a new species in 2013. The specific name "neblina" is Spanish for fog or mist, referring to the cloud forest habitat of the olinguito.
comments (2)
Funny story is that when we visited Bellavista in 2021, we were told about a mammal possibly appearing at night, but on the one night we tried, it didn't come. I imagine it was this species. They didn't explain in the way you did about its rarity, I'm sure we would have made a better attempt had we been properly informed.
Luckily though, you caught it, stellar job! Posted one year ago