KrisHelgen

Olinguitos are not at all fierce animals, but they are shy! But we are only just starting to learn about the behavior of olinguitos!

The name Olinguito comes from combing olingo + ito. Olingo to designate that it is closely related to olingos, and -ito to mean little. -ito can also be added as a term of affection! So "Olinguito" more or less means "little, adorable olingo"!

suffix -ito is Spanish

As far as we have been able to find out, it is also unknown to locals. Judging from local Andean language terms and from talking to people, it seems people rarely distinguish between kinkajous and olingos, let alone olinguitos. Part of the confusion is that in some areas of middle elevation forests in the Andes, you can have kinkajous, olingos, and olinguitos all living in the same general area, and they are all pretty hard to tell apart when you see them at night up in the trees. If we had found a local language name that definitively applied to the olinguito (and not also to olingos or kinkajous), we would have loved to have used that name as the common or scientific name of this animal that we have called the Olinguito.

Lots of possible names-- we were thinking about names like "Mountain Olingo" or "Andean Olingo", but I wanted to choose a good one-word name, and I think Olinguito suits the animal really well!

There is no doubt that there are many hundreds of unknown living mammal species out there that still have not been "discovered" or given scientific names.