The Cutest US Mammal You’ve Probably Never Seen

Ring-tailed cat, miners cat, bassarisk, cacomistle; the ringtail (Bassariscus astutus) goes by many names. A ringtail by any name is just as cute.As Rosemary Stussy, a retired Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist once put it, “on a scale of one to 10, their cuteness factor is a 15.”“Cat” likely came into many of the common names for ringtails in part because ringtails are about the size of a house cat and in part because, as legend has it, gold rush era miners once enticed ringtails to live in their cabins as pet mousers.But the ringtail is not a relative of the cat. And though its scientific name is based on an ancient Greek term for fox (βασσάρα), it is not a relative of the fox either. It is — as you may have guessed by the lovely long, ringed tail — more closely related to the raccoon. Both are members of the Procyonid family.How to Spot a Ringtail You may know ringtails as a desert southwest species (state mammal of Arizona), but ringtails have a much wider range. They...