Mystery Animal Contest: Who Is This Little Fellow?

Mystery Animal Contest: Dec. 6, 2012 Wikimedia Commons

So, here are the rules: To answer, follow us on Twitter and tweet at us with the hashtag #mysteryanimal. For example:

Hey @PopSci, is the #mysteryanimal a baboon?

And then I might say "if you think that's a baboon, perhaps you are the baboon!" But probably not, because this is a positive environment and all guesses are welcome and also this is not a very common animal so guess whatever you want!

The first person to get it right wins! We'll retweet the answer from @PopSci, and also update this post so your amazing animal knowledge will be permanently etched onto the internet. Show your kids! Your dumb kids who thought that was a baboon!

Update: And the winner is...@Seth_Rosenthal, who after an understandable first incorrect guess landed on the right answer: this animal is a greater grison. Many folks guessed it was a honey badger, or ratel, a ferocious animal that gained widespread internet fame after a video of its toughness circulated. The greater grison is a mustelid, like the honey badger, related to weasels, skunks, and otters, but the grison lives in South America, not Africa or Asia. It's one of two species of grison--the other is the lesser grison--and we actually know very little about it for one very interesting reason. Its neck is extremely wide, wider even than its head, so it's basically impossible to strap a collar onto it for tracking.