The newly discovered predator of the Andes looks like a plush mascot - Gazeta.pl

newly discovered predator of the Andes looks like a plush mascot (Photo Handout Reuters)

reminds crossing a domestic cat with a plush teddy bear. Alive in the Andes predatory olinguito is a newly understood by researchers family member szopowatych – says the “ZooKeys”.

Olinguito (Bassaricyon Neblina) is the first species of prey, which was discovered in the Western Hemisphere in 35 years.

Weighing less than a kilogram olinguito has large eyes and woolly, reddish-brown fur. He lives in a misty forest of Colombia and Ecuador. Its name “Neblina” – borrowed from the Spanish term “fog”.

– Discovery olinguito shows that the world is not yet fully tested and met his deepest secrets – says head of the expedition, during which the discovery was made, Collection curator of mammals at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution, Kristofer Helgen.

Along with Miguel Pinto, a zoologist from Ecuador, scientists spotted olinguito in the forest on the western slopes of the Andes. As stated, this animal lives in trees, is active mainly at night and – even predatory – do not despise fruit. The researchers point out that the foggy forest inhabited by olinguito is threatened by human expansion. How To estimate has 42 percent. olinguito former habitat has been occupied by agricultural or absorbed in the city limits.

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