Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"

Today we're featuring an animal I haven't actually seen yet. In fact, few people have, and few people even know of its existence. This is a Binturong, Arctictis binturong. The genus name means 'bear weasel', and 'Binturong' is its native name in Borneo. It is also known as a 'bearcat'. It is the only species in its genus, and there's nothing else quite like it. The binturong occurs widely in tropical Southeast Asia, from far-eastern India to southwestern China, to Palawan in the Philippines and southward to the great Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java and Borneo.

This strange-looking animal is neither a bear, nor a weasel, nor a cat. It is a member of the Civet and Genet Family, the Viverridae. This means it is related to cats, but rather distantly. Going a bit deeper into the classification, it is a member of the Paradoxurinae subfamily, which includes the palm civets and other predominantly tree-climbing viverrids of Asia. It is indeed quite a nimble climber in spite of its big, lumbering appearance. It is unique amongst the old-world carnivorans in having a prehensile tail – that is to say with a grasping tip it can curl around twigs or branches to assist it in climbing. Its legs are short, and it treads mainly on the soles of its feet rather than just on the toes, as is the case in most other carnivorans. It has dark, shaggy fur over its body and tail, and long hairs project as tufts behind its ears. It grooms its fur using its tongue, teeth and claws, the last of which it sharpens by scratching trees. It sleeps with its head tucked beneath its tail. In captivity, binturongs grow very large, occasionally over 30 kg/66 lbs, but in the wild, they average around 15 kg/33 lbs. They can reach a total length of 150 cm/5', about half of which is the tail. A weird feature of binturongs is that they smell of buttered popcorn or corn chips! This odour is exuded from scent glands around its sexual organs. Such scent glands is a common feature of the civets (though the odours are different in the other species). The scents are used to mark its territory by rubbing its backside and tail against tree limbs. Binturongs also are quite vocal, communicating with snorts, chuckles, wails, growls, grunts and hisses.

Despite being members of the order Carnivora, binturongs eat both plant and animal foods. They catch a variety of small critters, from rodents to fish to earthworms and insects, but also feed on fruits, especially wild figs. This makes them important distributors of the seeds of fruit-bearing trees in the rainforests. Such seeds are adapted to travel through the digestive system of a mammal or bird, which will weaken the seed coat just enough to allow it to germinate. In addition, the germinating seed will be surrounded by a dollop of fertilizer in the dropping, giving it a good head start in growth. Binturongs will feed during the day or at night. They feed high up in the trees, but will climb down to the ground to move from one tree to another if necessary. They're able to descend head-downward, assisting their grip using their tails.

Tropical rainforests aren't seasonal, and binturongs can mate at any time of the year. The female has a remarkable ability to retain the fertilized egg in her body without letting it implant into the uterus for a long time. She can then allow it to implant when the conditions are just right, meaning mostly that fruit and other food is plentiful and easily available. Female binturongs are bigger than the males, and are socially dominant. The babies, called Shruggles (usually two, but up to six per litter) are born blind and helpless, and the female alone cares for them, though their father may stay nearby for a short while. They accompany their mother sometimes well into adulthood. Binturongs remain fertile to the age of about fifteen years, and may live for twenty-five years.

Binturongs are widespread, but generally uncommon. They're vulnerable to hunting (although they're legally protected almost everywhere they occur) but even more to the ongoing destruction of their rainforest homes. Fortunately, they are fairly easy to keep in captivity and occur in many zoos. However, the important thing remains to safeguard the remaining forests, not just for the sake of the binturongs, but also for all the other wonderful wild things that occur in them.

Willem

22.01.24 Front Page

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