Saturday, October 06, 2007

Kinkajou (Potos flavus)

I'm told that is is a kinkajou (Potos flavus) skull. I've never seen a kinkajou in my life, so I can't guarantee it. My doubt is based on the teeth. I can't imagine an nocturnal animal that lives in the trees eating fruit and insects needing all those long sharp teeth. They have prehensile tails, like many monkeys. You might get the impression from looking at the skull that the animal is quite large, but it only weighs between 2-3 kilos. I don't remember how I came by the skull, but I think it was acquired at some Indian village in Peru. I ran into an interesting article on kinkajous at the following link: http://blue-n-gold.com/halfdan/osito.htm

I guess I'll have to eat hat because the author of the reference states that kinkajous are classified as carnivorous and that they do have very sharp teeth!

1 comment:

Graham Slater said...

Hi Steven,

I ran across this post while searching for some images of Kinkajou skulls. You may have already found out, but this is not a kinkajou, although it is related. It's actually a coati (Nasua nasua). Those large sharp teeth are used mostly for intimidation and fighting.

best,

Graham