Binturong
Arctictis binturong
— Where the name comes from
Arctictis is a Greek hybrid: árktos, “bear”, and iktís, “weasel” — the bear-weasel, which is exactly the impression it gives anyone seeing it for the first time, and it is neither. Binturong comes instead from a Malay language now extinct, and is one of the rare Asian common names to pass intact into scientific nomenclature as a specific epithet.
— Facts
- Group
- Mammals · Mammalia
- Order
- Carnivores
- Habitat
- Primary and secondary rainforest, high canopy
- Range
- South-East Asia, from Bangladesh and Myanmar to Java, Borneo and Palawan
- Size
- 60–95 cm long plus as much again of tail, 9–20 kg
- Diet
- Omnivore — mostly figs, plus insects, birds, fish
- Lifespan
- 18–20 years
— Characteristics
- 01
It is one of only two carnivores in the world with a prehensile tail able to bear its whole weight.
- 02
It comes down trees head first by rotating its ankles through 180 degrees.
- 03
Females can delay implantation of the embryo, timing the birth to the fruiting season.
— What sets it apart
It smells of freshly made popcorn, and this is not a tour-guide metaphor: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline has been identified in its urine, exactly the molecule formed when maize pops and when basmati rice cooks. In popcorn it arises from the heat of cooking; in the binturong from a bacterial process at body temperature. Two completely different chemical routes arrive at the same smell, and the animal marks its territory with what to us is the fragrance of the cinema.
