The

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

''Bassaricyon'' consists of small

Neotropical The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In biogeogra ...

procyonids, popularly known as olingos (), cousins of the

raccoon The raccoon ( or , ''Procyon lotor''), sometimes called the North American, northern or common raccoon (also spelled racoon) to distinguish it from Procyonina, other species of raccoon, is a mammal native to North America. It is the largest ...

. They are native to the

rainforest Rainforests are forests characterized by a closed and continuous tree Canopy (biology), canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforests can be generally classified as tropi ...

s of Central and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

from

Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

. They are

arboreal Arboreal locomotion is the locomotion of animals in trees. In habitats in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some animals may scale trees only occasionally (scansorial), but others are exclusively arboreal. The hab ...

and

nocturnal Nocturnality is a ethology, behavior in some non-human animals characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is "nocturnal", versus diurnality, diurnal meaning the opposite. Nocturnal creatur ...

, and live at elevations from sea level to . Olingos closely resemble another procyonid, the kinkajou, in

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

and habits, though they lack

prehensile tail A prehensile tail is the tail of an animal that has Adaptation (biology), adapted to grasp or hold objects. Fully Prehensility, prehensile tails can be used to hold and manipulate objects, and in particular to aid arboreal creatures in finding and ...

s and extrudable tongues, have more extended muzzles, and possess anal

scent glands Scent gland are exocrine glands found in most mammals. They produce semi-viscous secretions which contain pheromones and other semiochemical compounds. These odor-messengers indicate information such as status, territorial marking, mood, and ...

. However, the two genera are not

sisters A sister is a woman or a girl who shares parents or a parent with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to r ...

. They also resemble

galago Galagos , also known as bush babies or ''nagapies'' (meaning "night monkeys" in Afrikaans), are small nocturnal primates native to continental, sub-Sahara Africa, and make up the family Galagidae (also sometimes called Galagonidae). They are ...

s and certain

lemur Lemurs ( ; from Latin ) are Strepsirrhini, wet-nosed primates of the Superfamily (biology), superfamily Lemuroidea ( ), divided into 8 Family (biology), families and consisting of 15 genera and around 100 existing species. They are Endemism, ...

Species

There is disagreement on the number of species in this genus, with some taxonomists splitting the populations into as many as five species (adding ''B. pauli'' to the list below), two species (dropping ''B. medius'' and ''B. neblina''), or just a single species (''B. gabbi''). Until recently, only the

northern olingo The northern olingo (''Bassaricyon gabbii''), also known as the bushy-tailed olingo or, simply, the olingo (due to it being the most common of the species), is an arboreal (tree-dwelling) member of the raccoon Family (taxonomy), family, Procyonid ...

(''B. gabbii'') was particularly well-known, and it was usually confusingly referred to simply as an olingo. Olingos are quite rare in zoos and are often misidentified as kinkajous. A previously unrecognized olingo, similar to but distinct from ''B. alleni'', was discovered in 2006 by Kristofer Helgen at Las Maquinas in the

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

.Handbook of the Mammals of the World (2009). He named this species ''B. neblina'' or olinguito and presented his findings on August 15, 2013. With data derived from anatomy, morphometrics, nuclear and

mitochondrial DNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA and mDNA) is the DNA located in the mitochondrion, mitochondria organelles in a eukaryotic cell that converts chemical energy from food into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA is a small portion of the D ...

, field observations, and geographic range modeling, Helgen and coworkers demonstrated that four olingo species can be recognized:

Evolution

Genetic studies have shown that the closest relatives of the olingos are actually the

coati Coatis (from Tupí), also known as coatimundis (), are members of the family Procyonidae in the genera '' Nasua'' and '' Nasuella'' (comprising the subtribe Nasuina). They are diurnal mammals native to South America, Central America, Mexico, ...

s; the divergence between the two groups is estimated to have occurred about 10.2 million years (Ma) ago during the Tortonian age, while kinkajous split off from the other

extant Extant or Least-concern species, least concern is the opposite of the word extinct. It may refer to: * Extant hereditary titles * Extant literature, surviving literature, such as ''Beowulf'', the oldest extant manuscript written in English * Exta ...

procyonids about 22.6 Ma ago during the Aquitanian age. The similarities between kinkajous and olingos are thus an example of

parallel evolution Parallel evolution is the similar development of a trait in distinct species that are not closely related, but share a similar original trait in response to similar evolutionary pressure.Zhang, J. and Kumar, S. 1997Detection of convergent and pa ...

. The diversification of the genus apparently started about 3.5 million years ago, when ''B. neblina'' branched off from the others; ''B. gabbii'' then split off about 1.8 Ma ago, and the two lowland species, ''B. alleni'' and ''B. medius'', diverged about 1.3 Ma ago. The dating and biogeography modeling suggest that the earliest diversification of the genus took place in northwestern South America shortly after the ancestors of olingos first invaded the continent from Central America as part of the

Great American Interchange The Great American Biotic Interchange (commonly abbreviated as GABI), also known as the Great American Interchange and the Great American Faunal Interchange, was an important late Cenozoic paleozoogeographic biotic interchange event in which land ...

. The evolution of olingos thus contrasts with that of kinkajous, a much older lineage that is thought to have arisen in Central America long before they reached South America.

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Procyonidae Carnivoran genera Carnivorans of Central America Carnivorans of South America Taxa named by Joel Asaph Allen