Baby olinguito (Juan Rendon of SavingSpecies)
If you thought the olinguito, the mammal species discovered in August and described as a “cross between a teddy bear andhouse cat,” couldn’t get any cuter, you haven’t seen the critter as a baby. Scientists with the conservation groupSavingSpecies spotted the baby, who was about the size of a kitten, on a trip to Colombia’s La Mesenia Reserve Forest. The olinguito has been hiding in plain sight for years. One even lived in U.S. zoos in the 1960s and 1970s but it was mistaken for an olingo, a related group of mammals. It was the first carnivore to be discovered in more than 30 years. Genetic analysis has found that there are actually four subspecies of the olinguito. — Read it at National Geographic
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