The Bear Cat
Did you know that there is an animal in the real world that smells like popcorn?
That animal is called the binturong or simply the bear cat but despite the name, the bear cat neither part of the cat family or the bear family but rather is part of the civet family who are indigenous to the south East Asian rainforests. They are only called bear cats because their head resembles that of a cat and their body resembles that of a bear. The Bear cat, a can be found around South East Asia and some parts of South Asia (particularly in rainforests) like Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and parts of India and Indonesia.
The popcorn smell that a bear cat gives off is thanks to a chemical compound called 2-AP (2-acetyl-pyrroline) found in its urine (wee) which gives off a smell suspiciously similar to the smell of cooked popcorn. However when threatened, the bear cat would defecate (poop) on animal it feels threatened by and this was depicted in the Natural Habitat short about the bear cat.
When it comes to reproduction, the female bearcat breeds twice a year as their pregnancies last 3 months which can include a litter range of 1-6 whelps (babies) and will make a purr sound and a mating call to lure in a mate. A female bearcat is mature at 28 months and the males are mature at 30 months.