Order membership reflects ancestry, not menu. The kinkajou sits within Carnivora as a member of the raccoon family, yet dietary studies place fruit at the great majority of its intake, with nectar, flowers and some invertebrates making up the rest. A tongue that can extend several centimetres reaches nectar deep in flowers and honey in bee nests.
The prehensile tail is the more unusual feature. Grasping tails are common in New World monkeys and some marsupials but almost absent in carnivorans: the kinkajou and the binturong are the exceptions, and they are not close relatives. The kinkajou is a procyonid, the binturong a viverrid, on opposite branches of the order, so the trait arose twice. The tail works as a fifth limb, holding the animal's weight while both hands reach for fruit.
The combination of nocturnal habits, a golden coat, a gripping tail and a fruit diet leads to persistent misidentification as a monkey or a lemur, and the animal's other common name, honey bear, adds a second wrong lineage. Its role as a pollinator is often asserted, but the pollen it actually transfers has not been measured.