While the ringtail (Bassariscus astutus) has several features making it identifiable the trouble is finding one to identify. Alternating bands of black and white fur cover the long tails which are where it gets its name. White rings of fur surround the large eyes, they have large rounded ears, the legs are short and the grayish colored body is long. They only weigh one to two pounds and with their tails they are twenty-four inches long.
The ringtail prefers living in rocky habitats associated with water like caves, mine shafts and riparian canyons. The fact they are incredible climbers means they easily make their way up trees, rocky cliffs, vertical walls and cactus. The hind feet of the ringtail can rotate to 180 degrees allowing them to get a good grip for coming down from these places. Nocturnal animals with amazing eyesight and hearing which are both adaptations that are helpful to the ringtail.
They make their homes in dens in the hollow of trees, rock crevices, mine shaft and burrows other animals have abandoned. They will even live in occupied homes attics and abandoned buildings.
The ringtail doesn't have a special status for conservation since they are doing fine on their own. They can be found in New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, Baja California, south through California, Northern Mexico, southern Nevada, Texas, southwestern Oregon, eastern Kansas and Utah.
Omnivorous animals the ringtail will eat anything that is the right size. Their diet includes snakes, lizards, small mammals like squirrels, wood rats, mice, and birds, bird eggs, fruit and insects. The ringtail is hunted by bobcats, coyotes, and the great horned owl.
The female and male ringtails both reach maturity at three hundred days. The gestation period for the ringtail is only fifty-two days with weaning of the young occurring after forty-two days. Ringtails have one litter per year with three young in them.
The ringtail has a lifespan of six to nine years in the wild and will live longer when in captivity. (Maximum lifespan is nineteen years.) The ringtail was Arizona's state mammal in August of 1986. They are mistakingly called miners cats or ringtail cats even though they are no relation to the cat. The raccoon and the coati are related to the ringtail however.
Sources:
http://www.desertmuseum.org/kids/oz/long-fact-sheets /Ringtail.php
http://www.thewebsiteofeverything.com/animals/mammal s/Carnivora/Procyonidae/Bassariscus/Bassariscus-astu tus.html