New species emerges from South American jungle

A raccoon-like animal has become the first new carnivore to be discovered in 35 years.

The olinguito, or Bassaricyon neblina, is a small creature with large eyes and a woolly coat, which lives in the jungles of Colombia and Ecuador.

Although specimens have been kept in museums for hundreds of years, they were thought to belong to a closely related but different species known as olingos.

The true identity of the animal went undiscovered until scientists decided to classify a collection of olingos stored at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, and realised that some did not fit.

The decade-long project revealed a new species with smaller teeth and skulls than olingos, with longer and thicker coats, which appeared to have lived in higher reaches of the northern Andes than any known olingo species.

Scientists travelled to South America and confirmed that the animal is alive and well via video footage shot during a three-week expedition.

They found that the olinguito is most active at night, spends most of its life in trees, has one baby at a time, and generally eats fruit.

The creature is classified as a carnivore because the term - generally understood to mean a meat-eater - also applies to any other animal in the order Carnivora, which includes cats and dogs, for example.

Kristofer Helgen, who led the study, said: "The discovery of the olinguito shows us that the world is not yet completely explored, its most basic secrets not yet revealed.

"If new carnivores can still be found, what other surprises await us? So many of the world's species are not yet known to science. Documenting them is the first step toward understanding the full richness and diversity of life on Earth."