The ringtail "cat" that's not a cat

You would think that in the world of science, where everything is studied down to a gnat's eyebrow, people would be as careful about common names as they are about scientific names, but it just isn't so.

For example, a "dragon fly" is not a fly at all, not even close. Dragon flies have four wings, while flies have only two, and that's just a tiny part of the difference between dragon flies in the order Odonata and true flies in the order Diptera.

An "inchworm" cannot be any further from an annelid than an elephant is to an ant. The inchworm is a lepidopteran and can eventually become a moth, while a worm is a worm is a worm and what you see is what you get. The list goes on and on...

In that spirit, I shall refer to Bassariscus as a "ringtail." You can add the "cat" if you want to, but it just doesn't fit this animal - any more than "civit cat" fits the spotted skunk.

Martin Lichtenstein, a brilliant physician, zoologist and explorer who traveled the globe collecting animals for the zoo in Berlin, named the ringtail, Bassaricus astutus. More recent men of science have given it the subspecies names of a. arizonensis; a. flavus, a. yumanensis, and a. nevadensis, mostly for where it was found.

The ringtail is the state animal of Arizona, and really gets around, occupying some part - if not all - of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas and Utah.

One look is all you need is to see that it resembles our raccoon, which is not a "cat." However, even though there are similarities, ringtails are not grouped with raccoons by the scientific community.

Up until just recently, ringtails in Oregon have been limited to the southwestern countryside, from about the state line to Ft. Klamath, to the Coast Range, to about Prospect. That may have changed however - for reasons unknown - but probably linked to the nebulous phenomenon known as "climate change."

The other day I received a phone call from an informant in Tollgate that went something like this: "Hi Jim, this is (mumble, mumble, not sure who because of my hearing), I saw a funny-looking raccoon last night. It didn't have a mask, was kinda small and skinny, and it was climbing in a tree out behind my house."

That doesn't sound like the raccoon we're all so familiar with, does it? That's what I thought, and the replacement hit me like a lightning bolt: ringtail!

But that bothered me; it was too many miles outside of it's normal range, and had someone had it as a "pet" I think I would have heard about it. But... I started calling around to see what was what. Monty Greg, wildlife biologist with the Sisters Ranger District, has seen them in different places, one at 3 a.m. near Sisters when he was on his way home from calling spotted owls, and a couple of friends in the wildlife business said, "could be." So, why not?

Now all you have to do is confirm the sighting by watching outside your place at night and sending me a photo of the ringtail in your backyard.

Ringtails seems to prefer the dry, desert-like environment in Oregon where it makes a living on insects, reptiles, rodents and small birds. The tail is a balancer, which, along with ankle joints that are very flexible, helps it to climb around in trees with great dexterity.

In older houses it can go from floor to ceiling between the walls and studs by pressing all four feet against one wall, back against the other, and scooting up, down, left or right.

According to my dear, departed old pal, Vince Roth, ringtails also have a bowling league. More often than he liked, Vince had them doing just that at night in the attic of his house in Southeast Arizona. One night he decided to end the ringtails' frolicking by hitting the ceiling of the old log cabin with the blunt-end of a mop, resulting in the entire chickenwire/lath and plaster ceiling crashing down on Vince and his wife in their bed.

The last thing I heard him mutter as he rolled over under the pile of debris to go to sleep was, "That'll teach them to bowl up there anymore."