olinguito

[ oh-ling-gwee-toh ]

noun

, plural o·lin·gui·tos.

1. a small mammal of the raccoon family, Bassaricyon neblina, resembling a long-tailed, slender domestic cat with a bearlike face, inhabiting the mountainous forests of Ecuador and Colombia: its identification in 2013 marked the Western Hemisphere’s first new carnivorous mammal species since 1978.

Word History and Origins

Origin of olinguito¹

Fist recorded in 2013; from Spanish: literally, “little olingo,” equivalent to olingo ( def ) + -ito diminutive suffix