Zoo in Michigan proudly welcomes the arrival of two adorable baby bintlets
Great news! What's a bintlet?

A dose of cuteness the world needs to see.
Michigan’s Potter Park Zoo was thrilled to announce the arrival of some new residents in 2022: bintlets.
You might be asking yourself, Um, just what is a bintlet? Well, bintlets are baby binturongs, fascinating creatures that hail from the rainforests of Southeast Asia where they love to hang out in the lush treetops. They're one of the few animals with a prehensile tail, meaning it can hold and manipulate objects.
Binturong: The bearcat that is neither bear nor cat.www.youtube.com
Though they are often called "bearcats" due to their hodgepodge appearance, binturongs are neither bear nor cat. They belong to the Viverridae family, a very unique species group containing all seemingly cat-like critters, though none are actually felines. According to Britannica, they have even been reported to be affectionate pets, much like the domestic house cat. But still—not cats. Very misleading.
Also: The binturong’s teeth technically classify it as a carnivore. However, it might as well be classified as a fig-etarian by the way it likes to swallow the small fruit whole. They’re basically a walking contradiction on four legs.
Perhaps the coolest thing about binturongs is that getting up close and personal with one might have you thinking you waltzed into a movie theater. They mark their territory by secreting a substance that famously smells just like buttery popcorn. Nature’s creativity is endless.
Threatened mostly by deforestation and illegal wildlife trade, binturongs have been listed as “vulnerable” on IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List. That makes the birth of Potter Park’s bintlets—the first bintlet birth at the zoo in more than two decades, WILX News reported—all the more special. Baby animal news is great. At-risk baby animal news is even better.
Potter Park posted to its Facebook page congratulating Thistle, the zoo’s female binturong, on her newborns. WILX added that where Thistle would remain with the bintlets for a few months time, the binturong father (named Barry—Barry the binturong, it’s just too perfect) would still be viewable at the zoo’s habitat.
Officials added that, sadly, only two of three bintlets survived. Despite 24 hours of care from veterinary and animal care staff, the third bintlet passed away from an illness. Still, in the video we see two healthy, squeaking babes right next to their happy mama.
"Love how the mom looks right at the camera like she is saying aren’t my babies the cutest babies ever," one person commented.
And now for the moment we’ve all been waiting for—close up photos revealing all the bintlet cuteness.

100% adorable.
A baby bintlet in a baby bathtub. To what do we owe this pleasure?
This one has its little eyes open.

Sooooo teeny!
According to Smithsonian's National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, bintlets are born with their eyes closed and will cling to their mothers until independent. Sometimes for even longer. Relatable.
Special thanks to Potter Park Zoo and Thistle for delivering some happy news to get us through the week. We got a sweet story and fun animal education—it doesn’t get much better than that.
If you’d like to check in on all the animal shenanigans happening at Potter Park, you can follow the zoo on Instagram. With more than 350 residents of all sizes and species, there’s sure to be no shortage of wholesome critter content.This article originally appeared three years ago.






a man sitting at a desk with his head on his arms Photo by
Can a warm cup of tea help you sleep better? If you believe it, then yes. Photo by 
A woman is getting angry at her coworker.via
A man with tape over his mouth.via
A husband is angry with his wife. via 
Three women sit on a blanket in the park. 
Two women engaging in a pleasant conversation inside a coffee shop
Two men engaging in a peaceful disagreement.
Resurfaced video of French skier's groin incident has people giving the announcer a gold medal
"The boys took a beating on that one."
Downhill skiing is a sport rife with injuries, but not usually this kind.
A good commentator can make all the difference when watching sports, even when an event goes smoothly. But it's when something goes wrong that great announcers rise to the top. There's no better example of a great announcer in a surprise moment than when French skier Yannick Bertrand took a gate to the groin in a 2007 super-G race.
Competitive skiers fly down runs at incredible speeds, often exceeding 60 mph. Hitting something hard at that speed would definitely hurt, but hitting something hard with a particularly sensitive part of your body would be excruciating. So when Bertrand slammed right into a gate family-jewels-first, his high-pitched scream was unsurprising. What was surprising was the perfect commentary that immediately followed.
This is a clip you really just have to see and hear to fully appreciate:
- YouTube youtu.be
It's unclear who the announcer is, even after multiple Google inquiries, which is unfortunate because that gentleman deserves a medal. The commentary gets better with each repeated viewing, with highlights like:
"The gate the groin for Yannick Bertrand, and you could hear it. And if you're a man, you could feel it."
"Oh, the Frenchman. Oh-ho, monsieurrrrrr."
"The boys took a beating on that one."
"That guy needs a hug."
"Those are the moments that change your life if you're a man, I tell you what."
"When you crash through a gate, when you do it at high rate of speed, it's gonna hurt and it's going to leave a mark in most cases. And in this particular case, not the area where you want to leave a mark."
Imagine watching a man take a hit to the privates at 60 mph and having to make impromptu commentary straddling the line between professionalism and acknowledging the universal reality of what just happened. There are certain things you can't say on network television that you might feel compelled to say. There's a visceral element to this scenario that could easily be taken too far in the commentary, and the inherent humor element could be seen as insensitive and offensive if not handled just right.
The announcer nailed it. 10/10. No notes.
The clip frequently resurfaces during the Winter Olympic Games, though the incident didn't happen during an Olympic event. Yannick Bertrand was competing at the FIS World Cup super-G race in Kvitfjell, Norway in 2007, when the unfortunate accident occurred. Bertrand had competed at the Turin Olympics the year before, however, coming in 24th in the downhill and super-G events.
As painful as the gate to the groin clearly as, Bertrand did not appear to suffer any damage that kept him from the sport. In fact, he continued competing in international downhill and super-G races until 2014.
According to a 2018 study, Alpine skiing is a notoriously dangerous sport with a reported injury rate of 36.7 per 100 World Cup athletes per season. Of course, it's the knees and not the coin purse that are the most common casualty of ski racing, which we saw clearly in U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn's harrowing experiences at the 2026 Olympics. Vonn was competing with a torn ACL and ended up being helicoptered off of the mountain after an ugly crash that did additional damage to her legs, requiring multiple surgeries (though what caused the crash was reportedly unrelated to her ACL tear). Still, she says she has no regrets.
As Bertrand's return to the slopes shows, the risk of injury doesn't stop those who live for the thrill of victory, even when the agony of defeat hits them right in the rocks.