Episode 323: The Kinkajou
b"Thanks to Lincoln for suggesting this week's subject, the kinkajou!\\n\\nFurther reading:\\n\\nEarly Primates Groomed with Claws\\n\\nNot actually a monkey:\\n\\n\\n\\nNot actually a bear [photo taken from this site]:\\n\\n\\n\\nShow transcript:\\n\\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I\\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw.\\n\\nThis week we\\u2019re going to learn about an animal suggested by Lincoln. It\\u2019s the kinkajou, an adorable but weird little animal from Central and South America.\\n\\nIn episode 302 we talked about the coatimundi and the olingo, and both those animals are closely related to the kinkajou. So is the raccoon. But the kinkajou is the only member of its own genus that probably started evolving separately from its closest relations around 22 million years ago.\\n\\nWhen the kinkajou was first described scientifically in the late 18th century, it was considered to be a type of lemur, which is a primate. At first glance, the kinkajou really does look like a primate in many ways. It\\u2019s arboreal, meaning it lives in trees, and it has a long prehensile tail. Its head is rounded with a short snout, and its large eyes are forward-pointing. Its ears are also low on the sides of its head. All these features resemble features common in primates, but the kinkajou isn\\u2019t related to primates at all. Eventually biologists figured it out and it was reclassified.\\n\\nYou can tell the kinkajou isn\\u2019t a primate if you know what to look for. It has fur on the bottoms of its feet, while primates always have bare skin on the bottoms of our feet and hands. Its fingers also all have long claws, whereas all primates have fingernails. The only exception is what\\u2019s called a toilet claw that some primates retain, including lemurs, where one toe has a claw instead of a nail that the animal uses to groom its fur. But no modern primates have claws on all their digits.\\n\\nThe kinkajou is covered with thick, plush fur that keeps it warm in cold weather. Some populations live in high elevations where it can get cold at night, and since it\\u2019s a nocturnal animal it needs to stay warm while it\\u2019s out looking for food. It\\u2019s yellowish-brown in color but some of its hairs are tipped with darker brown. Even though the darker hairs are mixed in with the lighter ones and the kinkajou doesn\\u2019t actually have a pattern of darker spots, the dark hairs absorb more light than the lighter hairs and can make it look spotted in low light. This helps it blend in with the dappled shade in the trees where it lives.\\n\\nThe kinkajou and its close relations make up the family Procyonidae, which is classified in the order Carnivora. Carnivora means \\u201cmeat-eaters,\\u201d but Procyonids are all omnivores that don\\u2019t eat a lot of meat. The kinkajou mostly eats fruit, and its favorite fruit is the fig. It also eats other plant parts, insects, and honey, but it mostly just wants lots of yummy ripe figs. (Same.)\\n\\nThe kinkajou lives in family groups, typically one female and her young offspring, a dominant male, and a subordinate male. During the day the family members sleep in a tree hollow or in a tangle of branches that give them plenty of shade. When it starts getting dark, the kinkajous wake up and go out looking for food. Sometimes the family forages together but more often they split up and forage on their own. When there\\u2019s a lot of food available in one place, like a bunch of fig trees, a whole lot of kinkajous may gather to eat and play together.\\n\\nBecause it spends just about all its life in the treetops, the kinkajou is well adapted to arboreal life. It can turn its hind feet around backwards to help it climb headfirst down a tree trunk, which is another trait it shares with the raccoon. Other animals have evolved the same ability, though, even ones that aren\\u2019t closely related to the kinkajou.\\n\\nThe kinkajou\\u2019s prehensile tail is strong and thick, and it often hangs from its tail to eat. It\\u2019s not a very large or heavy animal, only 10 lbs in weight at the most, or 4.6 kg, and usually less than half that."