14 DAY TRIAL // Only a few days ago, the news broke that a new mammal species had been discovered in the Andes. As reported at that time, these teddy bear-like creatures are now known as olinguitos.
Shortly after announcing the discovery of this news species, researchers were courteous enough to release pictures of a baby olinguito. One of these pictures is made available to you above.
According to Mongabay, the picture was taken by conservationists in the Colombia Andes.
Oddly enough, these people have spent many years looking after such creatures without knowing that they were dealing with a species previously undocumented by science.
Thus, like many before them, they assumed that the fuzzy animals in their care were olingos, a species of small mammals to whom olinguitos happen to be related and with whom they have been confused for several decades.
“All of us are simply delighted to know that we have been helping to protect an animal that was unknown to science less than 48 hours ago – and have been helping to restore its habitat for years!” ecologist Stuart Pimm told the press.