What Animal Has The Tail Of A Fox But Head Of Bear
- The binturong, or bearcat (Arctictis binturong) inhabits a range stretching from northeast India and People's republic of bangladesh to the Malay Peninsula, Borneo and the Philippines. It is plant more rarely in Nepal, S China, Java, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.
- This tree-dwelling house species occupies its own unique genus: it possesses a prehensile tail (like a monkey), purrs and cleans itself like a cat, and has a territory-marker scent that smells exactly like buttered popcorn.
- The binturong is threatened past habitat loss due to logging and agribusiness, especially the oil palm industry. It is also hunted for bushmeat, traditional medicine and the pet trade. A local coffee, made from beans that laissez passer through a binturong'due south digestive arrangement, is too valued.
- Binturongs take been piffling studied and their numbers in the wild are unknown. It is known that they eat prodigious amounts of strangler fig fruit, and that they are important seed spreaders. More than written report is urgently needed to determine how the species tin be conserved.
It has been said that the binturong is part bear, part cat, and has a monkey'south tail. Indeed, it does seem a flake like a composite animal, with parts gathered from here and there. But truly, it is in a form by itself — or at least, a genus all its very own.
The binturong (Arctictis binturong) is a medium-sized mammal, also known as a bearcat, of the Viverridae family, which includes civets, linsangs and genets. Its nine subspecies are the sole occupants of the genus Arctictis.
While the binturong does have bequeathed ties to the Felidae family, bearcats don't possess whatever link to modern cat species (fifty-fifty though the creature has eight-inch-long white whiskers, sometimes purrs, and grooms its coat by licking and rubbing its face with its paws),.
An arboreal animal, it spends much of its time in the tops of tall trees in lowland South and Southeast Asian rainforests and other woodlands. Game cameras have almost oftentimes captured its image every bit it slinks along the ground, shifting from one tree to another.
Rare over its entire Asian range, the binturong is most mutual in Malaysian Borneo, a few states in Northeast India, People's republic of bangladesh, and on the Philippine Islands of Calauit and Palawan. Binturongs have too been spotted, although less frequently, in Nepal, Due south China, Java (Indonesia), and even less so in Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.
The binturong almost nobody knows
Binturongs are one of the largest animals in the Viverridae family. They tin weigh up to fifty pounds, but most oftentimes weigh in at between 25 and 35 pounds.
They're omnivores and opportunists, eating found shoots and leaves, fruit, eggs, pocket-size invertebrates, fish, rodents — almost anything they can find and/or catch. In the wild, the bearcat enjoys a symbiotic human relationship with the strangler fig, the fruit of which is 1 of its favorite foods. In captivity, the bearcat'southward diet may include domestic dog food and basis meat.
As already mentioned, the species' appearance is truly unique. It is covered in coarse, shaggy black fur that can exist tipped with gray over time. From its small ears protrude long ear hair tufts.
And it is notably ane of the few mammals, outside of monkeys, to accept a prehensile tail, which can act as a fifth limb to support information technology as it climbs to a treetop. That appendage also acts as a unique safety device, and is e'er wrapped around a co-operative when the beast is sleeping high higher up the footing. The bearcat even has a born crude patch on the tail tip for improved grip.
That versatile tail — thick and nearly the same length every bit the animate being's body — along with half-retractable claws, and the ability to rotate the front paws by 360 degrees, all combine to make a binturong an astonishing climber.
Surprisingly, as agile every bit the bearcat is, it cannot leap from treetop to treetop with the greatest of ease, and then must climb downwards to the forest floor to change copse. Recently idea to be more often than not nocturnal, new footage from photographic camera traps shows a lot of action during the day every bit well — when on the ground, the animals tin can walk erect in a slightly stilted style like a bear.
A vehement creature
Lonnie Grassman, a fellow member of the IUCN Small Carnivore Specialist Grouping and a resident scientist at Texas A&M University, specializes in wild cats, and has trapped more 30 binturongs and radio-collared five to find out more about their habits — which, it turns out, include farthermost aggressiveness.
"I've captured hundreds of animals and the binturong is the nigh fierce," said Grassman in an admiring tone.
In his work, about traps were baited with alive chickens, which the binturongs would devour, despite that strong preference for figs. Given the opportunity, binturongs clearly bask meat, the scientist noted, only they are not ideal predators, as they are less agile than jungle cats, especially when on the ground.
Also, different cats, who when released from a trap tend to run away, binturongs can be aggressive and hunt nearby humans when released. They "are more scary than a leopard," said Grassman nearly his trapping experiences with wild binturongs in Thailand. "They are looking to kill you."
Which is maybe why binturongs have no known natural predators — except for people. Being one of the last known carnivores to possess a prehensile tail, the animals are perfectly adapted for a dense forest environment that is fading away across Asia, as it is steadily encroached on by humans.
Sex activity in the trees amid the scent of buttered popcorn
Researchers believe that binturongs mate in trees, as a coupling has nevertheless to be observed on the forest floor.
It is likewise believed that binturongs are one of maybe 100 mammals, according to biologists, capable of delayed implantation. This means that impregnated females can agree off on starting a pregnancy for more favorable environmental weather condition, assuring that the birth takes place during a specific flavor, by and large between January and March. Wild females typically nativity 1 to three binturongs in a litter, while captive females can have up to six.
Babe binturongs — or binlets — have been observed practicing teat ownership (a decision by each baby to choose a certain teat and stick with it). If a immature bearcat deviates from that dominion, fights break out. The reason for the behavior isn't known for sure, but the theory is that teat ownership is due to some teats producing milk with higher-fat content than others, making some more desirable.
Ane characteristic that may be a nod to the species' Felidae past is the purring sound that females make to give males a heads-upwards that they are nearby and in the mood to mate. But that's not the only way that binturongs, female or male person, let their presence be known. A binturong has an anal gland, like its civet cousins, that secretes a pungent scent, which the species uses to mark its territory.
This "perfume gland" is located under the tail, so a binturong can printing it to the basis or a tree branch, using it to pigment the landscape with its scent. Oddly, to humans, the territorial secretions of a binturong smell exactly like hot buttered popcorn. It is ane of the most identifiable characteristics of this pocket-size mammal for zoo-goers who have seen a binturong in captivity. And while civets as well possess a perfume gland, no other animal is known to ever odour of buttered popcorn.
Where accept all the binturongs gone?
Binturongs were listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List in 2008, with the species seeing a 30 pct population turn down in the previous 18 years, or over three generations. That decline is mostly due to habitat loss, degradation and destruction, peculiarly as logging and agribusiness rapidly reduce Asia'due south forests.
Habitat loss has been especially farthermost equally lowland forests are converted to oil palm plantations in the portions of the Malay Peninsula occupied by Thailand and Myanmar, and on the islands of Java, Borneo and Sumatra.
While much of this deforestation is occurring on unprotected lands, the IUCN recently reported a disturbing trend, writing that "protected areas are not exempt from deforestation; twoscore percent of the woods lost in Indonesia during 2000 – 2012 was lost in areas where logging is restricted."
The binturong is doing especially poorly in its northern range, an area that includes parts of Vietnam, Laos and Due south China. In that location likewise, logging concessions and the expansion of agribusiness have had a serious touch on. Add to that losses due to hunting and an active pet trade.
Currently, rampant hunting and trade in medium-sized mammals — a category binturongs autumn into — is causing populations to arroyo national extinction in range countries such every bit Vietnam, Lao people's democratic republic and China. (Binturongs are listed as Critically Endangered on China's Red List of Endangered Species).
Binturongs are hunted throughout their range for a multifariousness of reasons. In Laos, young binturongs are caged and sold alive at markets every bit pets; their skins are as well traded. The animals are sold for meat and considered a delicacy in Laos. In Vietnam, binturong meat is traded, along with other body parts used in traditional medicine.
In Indonesia, binturongs have been used forth with the Common Palm civet, some other Viverridae, to make "kopi luwak" (civet java) — an expensive drink produced by feeding the animals coffee beans, which they assimilate and defecate; the beans are so brewed into a kind of coffee. In fact, Indonesian "luwak farmers" have been known to raise captive binturongs for this purpose.
No major studies have been washed to determine the caste to which bearcats are hunted for bushmeat, for Kopi luwak, traditional medicine or equally pets, merely a expressionless binturong was recently establish forth with the xl frozen tiger cubs in the raid of the Tiger Temple in Thailand — an indication that A. binturong is valued past traffickers.
The exact number of binturongs still left in the wild is currently unknown considering a life led mostly in the forest canopy is difficult to observe on a daily basis, with most sightings of the animals fabricated via ground-based camera traps.
One piece of good news: while the species is threatened in the wild, information technology is adequately common in captivity. Binturongs are a popular zoo species. Outset generations are generally wild caught or obtained through the pet trade, while later generations are captive bred. Binturongs can exist seen in zoos worldwide.
Important to forest ecology
While niggling is known about the part binturongs play in wood ecology, 1 cardinal role they do play has been well studied — the bearcat is an important distributor of strangler fig seeds.
Binturongs enjoy avid on the fruit when it is in season and defecate the seeds beyond the forest floor. That doesn't only help with distribution, but is too a crucial stride in the germination process, every bit the fruit can't reproduce without the binturong'south assistance. A digestive enzyme in the binturong's tummy softens the difficult outer crush of the fig seeds, making it easier to digest, just likewise making it possible for the seeds to have root.
The loss of binturongs and their seed spreading services, scientists speculate, could create an imbalance in Southeast Asia's rainforest ecosystems. Just like so many Virtually Famous animals, no ane knows with any certainty what would happen ecologically if the species were to completely disappear from the wild.
What's adjacent for binturongs?
While many wild animals conservation groups acknowledge the serious population decline of binturongs throughout its range, it is difficult to find financial back up to keep the species from impairment.
With big-scale logging concessions and oil palm plantations ravaging Southeast Asia's lowland rainforests, the bearcat's habitat is fast vanishing. And they, like many other often undocumented small mammals and reptiles, are becoming the unsung victims of Asia'south deforestation.
Dr. Chris R. Shepherd, the Regional Manager of TRAFFIC in Southeast Asia told Mongabay that the binturong is "one of the many species in Southeast Asia that is threatened past hunting and merchandise, but, [like many other animals], has fallen through the cracks every bit information technology is not a well known species, or a 'flagship' species."
TRAFFIC occasionally finds young binturongs at Asian markets being sold for the pet trade, or adults being sold for their skin and meat, revealed Shepherd.
"By and large, local hunting and consumption is virtually probable a far greater threat than international trade, but again, this is a subject that definitely needs more attention," and written report, he said.
Unfortunately for the species, locals are by and large indifferent toward conserving current populations. Besides — and as with and so many other Almost Famous "orphan" species — few wildlife groups have stepped forward to adopt the binturong as one of the animals on which to tightly focus conservation efforts.
Clare Campbell, the director of Wild fauna Asia, an NGO that does fieldwork in the rainforests where binturongs alive, said that the organisation supports the bearcat'south conservation, but doesn't work directly to stop the merchandise or hunting. Though the NGO does seek to actively "protect Asia'south tropical forests and key landscapes which host the highest levels of biodiversity" — a conservation objective that includes forestlands where binturongs alive.
"Sadly, few donors, and few conservation organizations, focus on these 'low-profile' species," said Shepherd. "Clearly, this is an arroyo that needs to alter, equally the bulk of the species threatened by the illegal and unsustainable wildlife merchandise autumn into this category."
The IUCN assessment of the binturong's current state of affairs calls for "stricter enforcement of legislation confronting poaching, the wild fauna trade, habitat degradation and deforestation." Merely it doesn't say who will do it.
Until binturongs are fabricated a conservation priority, the research needed to empathise their behaviors and their refuse volition be lacking, as will the noesis needed to salve them. Scientists, for example, practise non presently know how habitat fragmentation or the degrading of forests is impacting the species' ability to find mates and reproduce.
Conservation groups step up
Not all is lost however. ABConservation, a French NGO, has called the binturong as its mission, and its website declares that it "is the one and but clan in the globe that is entirely dedicated to the study and protection of the Arcticis binturong." The organization is especially focused on making the binturong better known to the public through zoo programs, and past sponsoring an almanac World Binturong Day. It besides supports research in Asia.
The World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) has too placed a small spotlight on the threat to binturongs by offer an "Prefer a Binturong" donation kit that includes a stuffed bearcat, photo and adoption certificate.
Anthony Giordano, a longtime conservationist and executive director of the Guild for the Conservation of Endangered Carnivores and their International Written report (South.P.E.C.I.E.S), is currently steering priority conservation strategies toward preserving binturong populations.
Giordano has studied binturong camera trap data from Sumatra and Kalimantan, and is working to discover answers concerning the genetic diversity of secluded populations — such every bit on certain islands in the Philippines — and how exactly monocultures like oil palm plantations and other human encroachments are affecting binturong behavior and survival.
"They are a species priority for our organization," he said. "Nevertheless, we don't know enough well-nigh them [yet] to figure out an ideal conservation scenario."
Giordano pointed to several areas of written report urgently required for binturong conservation: targeted studies with large populations are needed to amend sympathize binturong ecology, he said. At the same fourth dimension, scientists demand to identify forests within the species' range that tin serve as conservation strongholds. Researchers also need to develop specialized methods of studying these creatures of the forest canopy that go beyond camera traps, so that everyday behaviors can exist observed and analyzed.
In society to get a clearer movie of the binturong'southward future, conservationists need to develop a clear picture of their present. "I'm going to practice my best," said Giordano.
Note: this story was originally titled "It's a bear, it'southward a cat; no, it's a binturong and it'due south threatened".
Commodity published by Glenn Scherer
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Source: https://news.mongabay.com/2016/10/its-a-bear-its-a-cat-no-its-a-binturong-and-its-threatened/
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