kinkajous

Our kinkajou (pronounced KINK ah joo) pair are both males, one of them about 9 years old and one about 20 years old, and are permanent residents at the Foundation.

Kinkajous usually spend most of their time alone, except to socialize or eat, often in a group with two males, a female, and her young. They are carnivores, though most of their diet is fruit and nectar. In fact, their name comes from a word that means honey bear, comes from their brown coat and their love of drinking nectar.

Mothers are solely responsible for their young, and leave them in the hollow of a tree until they are old enough to join the search for food. Young will open their eyes after one or two weeks, and by eight weeks can eat solid food, and easily hang by its tail. At three months they can climb up and down trees on their own. Males leave the family at a year and a half, females after two years.

Although they are similar in appearance to a monkey, they are not primates, but are most closely related to raccoons and coatimundi. In addition to their thick wooly brown fur that acts as a raincoat, they have small hand-like webbed feet with sharp claws.

Kinkajous are arboreal and nocturnal, from the tropical rainforests of Central and South America, where they typically spend most of their time along tree branches.

kinkajou Statistics: