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Kinkajou/ Night Monkey
Interesting Creature…
By: Shervin Belgrave
Kaieteur News – Native to the Central and South America, the Kinkajou are commonly known in Guyana as night monkeys. Although they look like primates, these animals are members of the Procyonide family which includes coatis and raccoons.
The Kinkajou
Like the local name “Night Monkey” suggests, Kinkajous are nocturnal creatures that spend most of their lives living in the dark holes of trees.
They are seldom seen on the forest floors and have the size of a large domestic cat. To make life easy in the trees, Kikanjous use their prehensile tail like another arm to grip on branches. The tail is so strong that the Kinkanjou can use it to hang from the branches while using its arms to eat.
Their diets consist of fruit and small mammals, which they snare with their nimble front paws and sharp claws. Kinkajous also love honey earning it another nickname, “Honey Bears.”
They use their long, skinny tongues to slurp honey from a hive, and also to remove insects like termites from their nests.
Kinkajous does all of its eating and roaming in the night and then return each morning to their tree holes to sleep.
Its social life is limited to small treetop groups that are very vocal when active by making screeching and barking sounds.
With regard to reproduction, female Kinkajous give birth to one offspring during summer or spring. Babies are weaned for four months by its adult parents and born with shut eyes. Their blindness only lasts for a month and due to its rapid development, these animals are able to hang upside down from its tail by the second month.
Male Kinkajous reach sexual maturity at 18-months while females take a little longer and become sexually mature at 30 months.
Kinkajous can be reared as pets but cannot be tamed easily. In the jungles of Guyana, they are known for attacking and biting humans when they feel threatened.
Most Indigenous people of Guyana would normally rear them in closed drums because these creatures prefer darkness rather than the sunlight.
Source of information: (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/facts/kinkajou)
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