West African oyan

The West African oyan, also known as the West African linsang, is a slender linsang of the genus Poiana that lives in the canopy of tropical forests in the Upper Guinean forests of West Africa. It is one of the least known small carnivores in Africa, with two records in the Ivory Coast from the 1960s and 1970s and ten localities in Liberia between the 1960s and late 1980s, while its presence in Sierra Leone and Guinea is uncertain. Its body is 30 to 38 centimetres long with a tail of 35 to 40 centimetres bearing 10 to 12 dark rings, and its yellowish to reddish brown fur has dark oval spots on the neck and small spots on the back and legs. Reginald Innes Pocock first described it in 1907 as a subspecies of the Central African oyan, and Donovan Rosevear raised it to species rank in 1974. Logging and bushmeat hunting probably affect it.