Binturong: The Bearcat that is Neither Bear nor Cat #WildCats #Animals #Bears #Shorts

The binturong stumbles around like it's doing a perpetual walk of shame. And when you hear what it gets up to, you might think that it is. A big contributor to their disheveled old man look is their coloring. Their fur is black and peppered, or salted I guess, with white, giving them an aged look.

While their whiskers are white and very wiry, not helping their cause. Binturongs live in the lowland jungles of Southeast Asia. They are arboreal, yet unlike their agile cousins, they don't jump from branch to branch, and instead will climb all the way down to the jungle floor when they need to switch trees. This is interesting

because they do have a large prehensile tail. It's about as long as their bodies, and it's oddly reminiscent of a giant anteater's tail. Their hind feet have an interesting adaptation for climbing. Their third and fourth toes are joined. This gives them better leverage when grabbing branches. One possible reason for their lack of

jumping is the fact that they're quite large, weighing up to 20 kilos, making leaping from branch to branch more challenging. While they are in the carnivora order, they are omnivorous and will eat a wide variety of meals. Basically, anything that they can catch. They'll eat birds, lizards, rodents, eggs, but the majority of their diet is

made up of fruit. In fact, they eat so much strangler figs that it's through binturong feces that strangler figs primarily spread their seeds. If you enjoyed this short, check out our full episode linked in the caption.