Analysis of binturong urine has identified 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, or 2-AP, as a dominant volatile. The same molecule is produced in cooked popcorn and baked bread by the Maillard reaction, and it occurs naturally in jasmine and basmati rice. The binturong produces it at body temperature rather than by cooking, and how it does so is not established; the leading suggestion involves bacterial action in the urinary tract on the animal's diet.
The scent has a function. Binturongs mark branches with urine as they move through the canopy, dragging the tail and hindquarters across the substrate, and 2-AP was found in both sexes and in adults and juveniles, consistent with a signalling role rather than a by-product of one sex or one life stage.
The binturong matters ecologically for a different reason. Its gut appears to be one of the few able to soften the hard seed coat of strangler figs enough for germination, making it an important disperser of a genus that shapes forest structure. It shares with the kinkajou a fully prehensile tail, rare among carnivorans, though the two are not close relatives.