V. Reading Comprehension : (每題 2 分，共 10 分) A researcher at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is part of a small team that
announced it had identified the Western Hemisphere’s first new carnivore species in 35 years. The olinguito — pronounced oh-lin-GHEE-toe — is a 2-pound member of the raccoon family that lives in the cloud-draped canopy of mountaintop rain forests in Ecuador and Colombia.Kinkajous and olingos, along with raccoons, coatis, ringtails and cacomistles, all belong to the
Procyonidae family. In fact, several specimens of olinguitos had been collected and preserved in
science museums around the country, but most had been miscataloged as olingos, their larger, more
common kin. The scientists needed DNA comparisons to confirm the specimens represented a distinct species.
“We should go see if we can find them,” said Roland Kays, director of the biodiversity lab at the state
science museum and a research associate professor of mammalogy at North Carolina State University.
Tags and notes indicating where the specimens had been collected led the researchers to the cloud
forests of South America. Kays and Helgen, his colleague, headed to the Otonga Reserve in Ecuador,
where they were joined by Pinto, who had managed to capture grainy, nighttime images of the elusive
creatures.
Their first night out, they saw them, high above, working the treetops and feeding on tomato-sized
figs that grew there. They collected two of the animals; one stayed in Ecuador for study and one was
brought back to the Smithsonian.
DNA testing proved the animals’ distinctness. All that remained was for the team to name the
olinguito — “little olingo” in Spanish — and publish their findings. “It’s the discovery of a lifetime,”
said Kays, 42, who came to the museum a year ago and constantly looks for ways to use technology to
teach museum visitors about biology.
An exhibit across the way from the lab where Kays works indicates how rare the team’s find is. It
says that biologists have catalogued 1.8 million species so far, and while 15,000 new species are
documented each year, most of those are insects and amphibians, or the occasional bat or rat. 【題組】32.We can find an olinguito in ____________.
(A) North Carolina State University (B) the biodiversity lab in Colombia
(C) the Smithsonian (D) the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences
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