SHANGRALA'S

SCIENTISTS UNVEIL NEW SPECIES 2!


      A tree-dwelling animal with a teddy-bear-like face and rusty-coloured fur has become the newest mammal species discovered by scientists.



Shangrala's Scientists Unveil New Species 2

      The olinguito, which is a cousin of the raccoon, lives in the cloud forests high in the Andes Mountains of Colombia and Ecuador, reported a team of scientists from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., which described it in the journal ZooKeys Thursday.
      The animal has actually been displayed in museums and zoos over the past 100 years, but was mistakenly identified as a different, known species among its close relatives, the olingo.
      "It's been kind of hiding in plain sight for a long time," Kristofer Helgen, curator of mammals at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, and lead author of the new report, told The Associated Press.
      Once displayed at Smithsonian-run zoo In fact, an olinguito named Ringerl was displayed at the Smithsonian-run National Zoo in Washington and shipped from zoo to zoo in the U.S. from 1967 to 1976. Zookeepers thought she was an olingo, and tried to get her to breed with other olingos, something she refused to do.
      "It turns out she wasn't fussy," Helgen said. "She wasn't the right species."





      Helgen realized the new species existed after testing the DNA of olingo specimens at museums around the world.
      A closer examination of the specimens with an unusual genetic fingerprint showed that the olinguito had a skull and teeth that were smaller and differently shaped than those of olingos. The animals, which weigh less than a kilogram, are also a smaller body with denser fur.
      The team decided to try to find out if the animal still existed in the wild. They contacted a zoologist in Ecuador, Miguel Pinto, who managed to capture camcorder footage of the animal
      Mainly fruit-eating Helgen and Roland Kays, director of the Biodiversity and Earth Observation Lab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, joined Pinto on a three-week field expedition in the cloud forests on the western slopes of the northern Andes, where they learned as much as they could about the animal.
      Olinguitos are part of the taxonomic group Carnivora that includes cats, dogs and bears, and in fact are the first members of that group discovered in the Americas in 35 years. However, despite being part of a group full of meat-eaters, olinguitos eat mainly fruit.
      The animals are active mainly at night and give birth to one baby at a time. The researchers also learned that olinguitos share their habitat with both olingos and kinkajous, another close, similar-looking relative.
      The olinguito has been given the scientific name Bassaricyon neblina. Bassaricyon is the same genus as olingos and its species name is Spanish for "fog."
      In a statement, Helgen said the discovery suggests that other surprises are waiting to be discovered by science.
      "The discovery of the olinguito shows us that the world is not yet completely explored," he said. "its most basic secrets not yet revealed."

Shangrala's Scientists Unveil New Species 2




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