It’s with some trepidation that I share this news: A previously unidentified mammal has entered the known-by-humans universe. Of course the Olinguito would have been fine without us, but we have been desperate for it, having exploited and anthropomorphized every other available creature.
This little beauty was pursued by a curious observer who must be wondering right now what he has wrought for this apparently harmless dweller of the rain forest canopy.
The good news in this development is that for storytellers, there is finally an animal who hasn’t already been employed as a muse. What writer, for example, has not despaired of creating a poem featuring a nightingale, knowing that Keats got there first and ruined it for everyone.
An Ode to the Olinquito
No creature has been more discreet, oh
Undiscovered Olinguito.
Unlike Hippos or Giraffes,
who, mugging for the easy laughs,
were captured with abundant ease
while you hid out in tops of trees.
Alone, alive, aloft, alert
a totem for the introvert,
concealed in clouds of jungle fog,
the world now gasps and points, agog!
Alas, your cover has been blown,
but now at least you know you’re known.
Prepare yourself to be festooned,
bedazzled, storied and cartooned.
Oh Olinguito, please stay fleet
and pray that you’re not good to eat.
An Olinquito walks into a bar and hops up on to the stool next to you. After a few drinks he reveals he and his kind have been in hiding for thousands of years, but now they’re out. You’d like to take his picture, but out of respect, you don’t. Good thing you don’t – he is beside himself with worry about deforestation and paparazzi from the National Geographic. Finally, he turns to you and says,
“What would you do if you were me?”
Trail Baboon 
First of all, I’d protest the name homo sapiens have given you – you’re way too cute for such a mouthful of letters!
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Good morning. I would say, “please leave me alone.” “Don’t put me in a zoo and stop cutting down the forests where I live.” Then I would work on my skills at hiding out so that people could not find me.
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Oh Dale! What a great ode. I m off the trail this weekend to help move son and his wife to Brookings. I will check in on Sunday.
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Nice job, Dale. Love the cadence of the lines “alone, alive, aloft, alert/a totem for the introvert.” I’d add to your cautions for this little critter: pray that your fur isn’t deemed desirable!
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RISE AND SHINE BABOONS!
Hey, Cutie Pie. Change your name to QTPi and hire a Press Agent (AKA Marketing Engineer).
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WP allowed me to post this a.m. without any hassle. WooHoo!
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Introduce him to Greta Garbo’s PR team – she managed to stay in the public consciousness without having to be in public. Perhaps with some public awareness of the adorableness of the olinguito, heightened – ‘natch – by a celebrity who takes on the cause, people will finally quite cutting down his/her home.
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Maybe Harper Lee could help out, too – she is really good at staying out of the public eye even though people would like her to be more public…
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Jacque’s on the right track. Olinguito needs to hire an agent or manager to direct the campaign. Someone who knows better than to mess with feeble TV shows but who will go right to Letterman or Leno to see who has the sweetest deal. I guess maybe Oprah deserves a shot. Olinguito should have a book to hawk, but that is easily arranged. Someone who can write an acceptably cute memoir would be easy to find, and writers can be hired for cheap (I happen to know this from direct experience). Olinguito should take a ferocious publicity tour and then disappear again, hiding in plain sight.
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Morning all. Considering our (human) track record, if I were the olinguito, I’d claim it was just a hoax and head back to the top of the canopy as soon as possible!
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The “just kidding”line.
Or in the words of the late, great SNL Emily Litella who misunderstood everything, “Oh, that’s different. Never Mind.”
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Yes, VS, good advice.
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Tell them not to make my fur glow in the dark.
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Great poem, Dale! I’d tell the Olinguito to start a preservation foundation for his/her species and habitat, and become its species’ official spokesanimal. They’d need to inaugurate a massive fundraising campaign, but then they’d be able to buy up the forest and turn it into a nature reserve.
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Do you think they could be declared an endanger species which would require the establishment of a nature preserved dedicated to their protection?
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Looks like you should have been “discovered” a lot sooner, little guy – a bit of mis-labeling that’s been happening for some time. You could hope that those who mis-labeled are embarrassed by their mistake and will not draw as much attention to you as they might otherwise.
Makes me wonder what else in the animal kingdom is mis-labeled!
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The describing of new species involves a certain amount of guess work. What some might think is a sign that an animal is a new species might be considered by others to be a variation found within an existing species. Describing new species is as much an art as it is a science. It might be easy to think that an Olinguito is just a variation found among it’s close relative the Olingo because the discovery of a new species in this group of animals is a very rare occurrence.
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I see from an article in the paper tonight that they had a female olinguito in some zoos and thought it was an olingo. They kept trying to get it to breed with olingos and couldn’t understand why it wouldn’t do that.
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If only the zoo could have translated olinguito…. “I’m just not that into him!”
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🙂
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