On a beautiful sunny Sunday my parents, Katja and me went to the Tierpark for a speciel after-birthday event I had made a gift to my mother. We were allowed to go offstage and see the 5-week old binturong babies. (I have to admit I also was not sure promptly when I heard the name which sort of animal Katja was speaking about - apologies to my old zoology prof ;-)).So here for anyone else who has never heard about an animal called binturong, a short description.
Binturongs belong to the family of Viverridae (Schleichkatzen, civets), appearing a bit like a mixture of bear and prosimian or of bear and cat (that's also their common name - bearcat). Binturongs are omnivors and live in the tropical rainforests of southeast Asia. As a very special feature they possess a strong tail which serves as a fifth leg. When climbing in the trees they can grab branches to keep their balance (on the lower picture you can see the tail of the baby wrapped around Katja's little finger instinctively). As adult they can reach a body length of about 1m (plus up to 90cm tail) and a weight of up to 20kg. Binturongs do not belong to the endangered species of the world because of their huge natural habitat and since it is known that the native folks of the rainforests keep them as a meat source and also as pets. Binturongs can become very old and are easy to tame, but they have an intense body smell, so maybe it's not a good choice to keep them inside a house (sorry Julia ;-)).
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Oh wie suess!!! Na, das ist ja mal ein klasse Geburtstagsgeschenk! Haben die kleinen Schnuffis gebissen oder sind die ganz harmlos? Und wie fuehlt sich das Fell an, sieht ziemlich rauh aus?
ReplyDeleteGruesse an die Heimat,
Wuestenjulia.
Ja das Fell war recht rauh, aber immer noch kuscheltauglich. Und außer ein paar Krallenkratzern am Hals hab ich keine Blessuren davongetragen, die sind wirklich sehr lieb gewesen. Und die Greifringelschwänzchen waren einfach nur zum Knuddeln. :-)
ReplyDeleteLG
von der, die noch immer nach dem Sommer sucht