A raccoon relative that grips branches with its long tail and searches for fruit at night.
It has dense soft brown fur, rounded ears and large eyes. Its long tail can grasp branches and support the body.
Along mature rainforest beside the Nationale 2 road in French Guiana, researchers studied kinkajous with canopy cameras from 2019 to 2022. They placed 34 cameras in 11 trees, 30 to 40 metres high, and analysed 2,223 photographs from the 27 cameras that recorded kinkajous. The 418 observation events represented at least four animals, and possibly more.
Activity ran from 7 p.m. to 5:57 a.m., with a peak between 1 and 2 a.m. Scanning occurred in 48.33% of observed events and travelling in 47.13%; quadrupedal walking occurred in 95.43% of travel events. Kinkajous crossed branch gaps by bridging, leaping, or dropping. Both curled and prone postures were recorded during rest. To their knowledge, the authors said this was the first report to document both resting postures in the species.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.