Olinguito (Bassaricyon neblina): Ring-Tailed Discovery in the Lofty Andes and Museum Fundraising Toy

The breakthrough nevertheless does not constitute the first observation of the raccoon relative. The olinguito instead emerges as a 100+-years-old staple to researchers of museum specimens and visitors of zoo-exhibited mammals. For example, zoo personnel and zoological researchers remember Ringerl as an amiably petite but -- seemingly -- unexpectedly stubborn Colombian-born mammal. For almost a decade -- from 1967, when a German-speaking couple gifted her to Kentucky’s zoo in Louisville, until her death in the world’s largest metropolitan zoo, at Bronx Park, in 1976 -- Ringerl resisted all efforts to breed with male zoo-mates at D.C.’s National Zoological Park as well as in:

• Salt Lake City, Utah;
• Tucson, Arizona.

But unbeknownst to everyone, Ringerl was an olinguita, not an olinga.

Knowledge of the olingo’s (Bassaricyon spp) existence dates back at least to the nineteenth century in terms of non-indigenous and non-Spanish collectors, researchers, residents, and trekkers of the Americas. The olingo indeed has “face” and name recognition as an attractive, inquisitive relative of fellow ring-tailed procyonids:

• Cacomistles (Bassariscus sumichrasti) of Central and North America;
• Coatis -- brown-nosed (Nasua nasua) of South America, mountain (Nasuella meridensis, Nasuella olivacea) of northern South America, and white-nosed (Nasua narica) of North through South America;
• Kinkajous (Potos flavus) of Central and South America;
• Raccoons (Procyon lotor) of North America;
• Ring-tailed cats (Bassariscus astutus) of North America.

Differences between the olingo and the now-recognized olinguito went unrecognized because of inaccessible habitats and technological obstacles.

Questions about permissible variations within genera and species constantly arise among scientists. Quiet challenges over olingo specimens date back almost 100 years in the United States of America. For example, New York has a fine collection of olingo skins, skulls and teeth. There is a record from 1920 of the American Museum of Natural History’s first bird and mammal curator and first ornithology departmental head pondering the implications of:

• Denser coats;
• Differently-shaped teeth;
• Guinea pig-sized lengths;
• Reddish orange colors;
• Shorter snouts;
• Smaller skulls.

The ponderings relate to the specimens’ support for components of Allen’s rule: atypically shorter limbs indicate elevations higher than the olingo’s known range. The ponderer was Joel Aseph Allen (July 19, 1838 - August 29, 1921).

Eighty-three years later, Dr Helgen attested to Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History atypical specimens from elevations too high for olingos. He checked specimens in:

• Ann Arbor’s Museum of Zoology;
• Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology;
• Berlin’s Museum für Naturkunde;
• D.C.’s Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History;
• Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology;
• Lawrence’s University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute;
• London’s Natural History Museum;
• Los Angeles County’s Natural History Museum;
• New Haven’s Peabody Museum of Natural History;
• New York’s American Museum of Natural History;
• Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Sciences;
• Quito’s Museo Ecuatoriano de Ciencias Naturales and Museos de Zoología;
• Stockholm’s Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet;
• Texas A&M’s Biodiversity Research and Teaching Collections;
• Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum.

In 2006, he traversed Ecuadorian olinguito homelands.

Scientists consider the olinguito the smallest extant member of the raccoon family, Procyonidae. Adult head-and-body lengths hover around 14 inches (35.56 centimeters). Adult tail lengths mature to 13-17 inches (33.02-43.18 centimeters). Adult weights may fluctuate around 1.98 pounds (900 grams).

Adult male olinguitos occupy the upper ranges in regard to mature dimensions even though the olinguita and the olinguito typically look super-close in size. The overlap undoubtedly results from the non-agoraphobic procyonid’s active lifestyle and energizing diet. Both females and males indeed tend to leave fecal droppings that are reminiscent in shape and size to small blueberries (Cyanococcus spp) and that indicate opportunistic consumption of:

• Epiphytic flower nectars;
• Tree-dwelling arthropods;
• Wild fruits, especially tomato-sized figs (Ficus spp).

The food sources which olinguitos favor easily can be accessed above-ground. The branch-jumping tree-bounder’s black-tipped, orange- to red-brown or tan coat functions as effective camouflage among ground-level vegetation and in tree canopies. The olinguita’s and the olinguito’s bushy, discrete-banded tail and limber, reversible ankles help the big-eyed, round-faced, small-eared mammal descend slopes and trees, head-first and squirrel-like. But olinguitos may:

• Devote their lives to exercising, foraging, mating, parenting and sleeping in fog-shrouded treetops;
• Employ balance and flexibility more through horizontal than vertical space.

Per Dr. Helgen, olinguitos may number in the tens of thousands in their known ranges precisely because they commit to high-elevation life high up in the cloud forest’s epiphyte-covered, gnarled-branched, mist-protected, thick-trunked neotropical trees.

Cloud forests carpet the Andes Mountains at elevations of 5,000-9,000 feet (1,524-2,743 meters). The interactions which Dr Helgen describes and the living and preserved specimens that many scientists and wildlife-lovers know cluster in central Colombia’s and Ecuador’s cloud forested-mountain corridors. But Dr Helgen inclines toward hypothesizing that olinguitos may be found -- not only in the two countries’ Central and Western Andes but also:

• Colombia’s Eastern Andes;
• Ecuador’s Loja-Huancabamba, Pallatanga-Sangay, and Quijos regions.

He opines that healthy populations also may exist northward in rain-forest habitats in the Central American countries of:

• Costa Rica;
• Guatemala;
• Honduras;
• Nicaragua;
• Panama.

He also opts for seeking robust populations eastward and southward in the South American countries of:

• Bolivia;
• Brazil;
• Guyana;
• Peru;
• Venezuela.

Dr Helgen’s hypotheses accord with the biogeographies of native and naturalized olingos and olinguitos. The most recently-shared ancestor of olingos and olinguitos dates back 3,000,000-4,000,000 years ago. The timing overlaps with the creations of:

• The Isthmus of Panama, as a land bridge for the Great American Biotic Interchange’s mingling of the previously isolated freshwater and terrestrial fauna of the northern and southern Americas;
• The North Andes Mountains, as a terrestrial obstacle to dispersal.

The creation of the first points to the spread of olingo populations from their original homeland in Central America. The second suggests the possibility of olinguitos overlapping with their wider-ranging “sister” olingos in the same Central and South American habitats but at higher elevations.

Olinguitas are suspected of delivering one newborn per litter since they have one set of mammary glands. Scientists are uncertain of:

• Breeding times;
• Gestation lengths;
• Kit-raising procedures.

They are likewise uncertain of total populations. Dr. Helgen nevertheless considers that olinguitos may be more near-threatened than threatened despite 42% of their habitat being destroyed, fragmented, and impacted by:

• Farmers;
• Loggers;
• Mountain-dwellers;
• Ranchers.  

He details as conducive to the nocturnal arborealist’s survival:

• Adaptability;
• Inaccessibility.

Diversification into subspecies – hershkovitzi of the Central Andes’ eastern slopes, neblina of the western Andes’ western slopes, osborni of the western Andes’ eastern slopes, ruber of the western Andes’ Urrao district -- and year-round life 32.81 feet (10 meters) above-ground indeed guard olinguitos from predators.

Becoming acquainted with reclusively survivalist olinguitos constitutes the scientific discovery of 2013. The insect-munching, nectar-sipping frugivore contributes to environmental well-being by:

• Acting as seed-dispersing pollinators of airborne plants;
• Controlling neotropical arthropod populations.

The super-photogenic species counts upon respect from wildlife-lovers and researchers. The future nevertheless depends upon economic, environmental, legislative and technological factors. Do private and public agencies consider as priorities allocating resources to research olinguitos and save their habitats? Economic analysis also has to consider the impact upon cloud forest-dwelling wildlife of such environmental stresses as:

• Air, ground and water pollution;
• Climate change;
• Extreme events.

Must protection of olinguitos be governmental priorities?

The North Carolina Museum of Natural History’s robust sales of toy olinguitos say “YES!”

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

photo by Ivo Poglayen-Neuwall; K. Helgen et al., Taxonomic revision of the olingos, ZooKeys, 324 (Aug. 15, 2013), Figure 15, page 30: CC BY 3.0, via Pensoft Publishers/ZooKeys @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=3550 (specific image URL @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/showimg.php?filename=oo_26200.jpg)

Las Pampas, adjacent to Otonga Cloud Forest Reserve, central Ecuador: Patricio Asimbaya and Leonel Velásquez (P. Asimbaya y L. Velásquez), CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bassaricyon_medius_close-up.jpg

Tandayapa Bird Lodge, northwestern Ecuador: Mark Gurney/retouched by SchirmerPower, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_Olinguito_ZooKeys_324,_solo_(2)_Fotor0902214247.jpg; via Pensoft Publishers/ZooKeys @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/showimg.php?filename=oo_26198.jpg

frontispiece, Autobiographical Notes and a Bibliography of Joseph Asaph Allen (1916): Not in copyright, via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/autobiographical00alleiala/page/n5/mode/1up?view=theater; Not in copyright, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/44824457

K. Helgen et al., Taxonomic revision of the olingos, ZooKeys, 324 (Aug. 15, 2013), Figure 10, page 25: CC BY 3.0, via Pensoft Publishers/ZooKeys @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/showimg.php?filename=oo_26195.jpg

strangler vine (Ficus tuerckheimerii), Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, northwest Costa Rica: Dick Culbert, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/92252798@N07/11362278535/

Olinguito artwork by Nancy Halliday
K. Helgen et al., Taxonomic revision of the olingos, ZooKeys, 324 (Aug. 15, 2013), Figure 3, page 17
image extracted by BartBotje, bot account operated by Bj.schoenmakers, from first of four illustrations, Fig. 3: CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Illustrations_of_the_species_of_Bassaricyon_-_ZooKeys-324-001-g003.jpg; via Pensoft Publishers/ZooKeys @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/showimg.php?filename=oo_26184.jpg

Bioclimatic distribution model and localities for Bassaricyon neblina
K. Helgen et al., Taxonomic revision of the olingos, ZooKeys, 324 (Aug. 15, 2013), Figure 11, page 27: CC BY 3.0, via Pensoft Publishers/ZooKeys @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/showimg.php?filename=oo_26196.jpg

Tandayapa Bird Lodge, northwestern Ecuador: Mark Gurney, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Olinguito_ZooKeys_324,_solo_(3).JPG; via Pensoft Publishers @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/showimg.php?filename=oo_26198.jpg

olinguito triptych
Tandayapa Bird Lodge, northwestern Ecuador: Mark Gurney, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Olinguito_ZooKeys_324.jpg; via Pensoft Publishers/ZooKeys @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/showimg.php?filename=oo_26198.jpg

photo by Greg Basco; K. Helgen et al., Taxonomic revision of the olingos, ZooKeys, 324 (Aug. 15, 2013), Figure 20. page 41: CC BY 3.0, via Pensoft Publishers/ZooKeys @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/showimg.php?filename=oo_26206.jpg

hunter with olinguito specimens
K. Helgen et al., Taxonomic revision of the olingos, ZooKeys, 324 (Aug. 15, 2013), Figure 18, page 35: CC BY 3.0, via Pensoft Publishers/ZooKeys @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/showimg.php?filename=oo_26203.jpg

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