15.08 US Scientists Discover World�s Newest Mammal

WASHINGTON, August 15 (By Karin Zeitvogel for RIA Novosti) � US scientists announced Thursday the rare discovery of a new carnivorous mammal that lives in the trees of the Andes mountains in South America.

Called the olinguito, the orange-brown, furry creature with a bushy tail and big, dark eyes is the first carnivore to be discovered in the Americas in 35 years, said Kristofer Helgen, curator of mammals at the Smithsonian�s National Museum of Natural History and leader of the team that discovered the new species.

�The discovery of the olinguito shows us that the world is not yet completely explored, its most basic secrets not yet revealed,� Helgen told reporters at a news conference Thursday in Washington.

�If new carnivores can still be found, what other surprises await us? So many of the world�s species are not yet known to science,� he said.

The newcomer to the animal kingdom, which looks like a cross between a cat and a teddy bear, is the latest scientifically documented member of the Procyonidae family, which also includes raccoons.

Olinguitos have been held in zoos in the United States in the past, but zookeepers thought the furry beasts were a subspecies of the larger olingo because they looked similar and came from the same part of the world.

It was with the advent of DNA testing that a team led by Helgen was able to prove that olinguitos were, in fact, a unique species.