Once upon a time, the evolution has looked at two of the most adorable animals she created- cats and raccoons, and thought:
Hmmm, what if I combine them? Then I will get double cute!
Binturongs are lovely and charming animals from Southeast Asia. They look really similar to cats: a long fluffy tail, whiskered snout and protruding ears with tassels. Reach a length of up to 96 cm+ the tail with the same length. Weigh an average of 9-14 pounds, but you can successfully feed your own binturong up to 20 kg.
Favorite activities in life- sleep, eat and purr. The happy beast will rumble, making sounds like a cat. You can hear it, if you will scratch the animal behind the ears.
Binturongs active at night and live mainly in the trees. Their movements are slow and careful, they don't jump, but skillfully use their long tail, can even grab objects with it.
On the ground these animals are quite clumsy. While walking they step on the ground with the whole foot, like bears. Their movements are very similar to the behavior of pandas.
Favorite food in the wild- fruits and insects, do not disdain carrion, and small birds and fish. Favorite food in captivity – all with sugar, milkshakes, fruit pies, yogurt, marshmallows. After a large dose of sugar Binturong turns on the Turbo-mode: he starts running and jumping randomly and falls asleep in an hour.
Like many other species, these animals often mark their territory, very often, it is even more looks like uncontrolled copious urination.
Probably, nature thought that people and Binturongs must to be together, so she gave them another strange ability… their urine smells of fried popcorn.
The smell is not related to their ration, it occurs due to the content of the chemical compound 2-AP (2-acetyl-1-pyrrolin), 2-AP is also formed when you fry the popcorn. But, in the case of binturong, it is obtained in the interaction of urine with microorganisms on animal hair.
Unfortunately, their uniqueness also attracts the attention of poachers. Traditional Asian medicine confer their meat and many parts of the body with magic features. Therefore, the number of Binturongs in nature gradually reduced.
If I could choose the totemic animal, then my choice would fall on Binturong :)
