NATIVE ANIMAL OF THE MONTH
Procyon lotor: (n.) a mid-sized hypocritical nocturnal mammal that paradoxically enjoys eating garbage and obsessively washing its food.
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Order: Carnivora
Other names: Masked Bandit, Waschbär (German), Meeko (Pocahontas), Rocky (The Beatles)
Family: Procyonidae Genus: Procyon Species: Lotor
“A very interesting book could be written about the Raccoon and, with its industrious energy and resourcefulness, it deserves to be elevated to the status of the National Emblem in place of the parasitical, carrion-feeding Bald Eagle.” - Ivan T. Sanderson, Living Mammals of the World
Trivia: Which U.S. President had pet raccoons?
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cheating, being a meany, and/or generally being sneaky). Their ability to outsmart all of us comes from their inordinate skills and massive brains, making raccoons adaptable and highlyevolved, fur-covered secret agents. Their “voluminous braincase” gives them a memory span of up to three years for solving complex problems. That’s more than most of us can claim. They use a highly-developed secret language to communicate encoded messages. So far, we’ve only been able to identify 13 distinct calls, but there could be millions. Raccoons have also spent millennia developing their permanent bandit mask that comes standard. Besides allowing raccoons to more easily remain anonymous, their dark masks reduce glare, improve night vision, and help them look cool, even when they’re not trying. Raccoons are also capable of climbing down trees head first ninja-style by turning their hind feet around so their claws point backwards, and their paws become pliable when wet. They might even cling to glass, which would enable them to scale skyscrapers. Who knows? They can also hear things really well, like earthworms inside the Earth. Like, literally underground. But every super-thing has its kryptonite. For raccoons, its beech trees. The slick and
slippery bark makes these trees especially difficult to ascend. Raccoons have been known to avoid these trees at all costs. Recently, raccoons have been on the move. In Japan, up to 1500 raccoons were imported as pets each year after the success of the anime series Rascal the Raccoon in 1977. The raccoon dog, which looks a lot like a chow chow, lives in Europe and eastern Asia. And they’re moving to the cities. These urban raccoons are responsible for, um, recycling, the garbage for you. They also like toothpaste. Raccoons can be picky eaters, too, and have been known to develop strong individual preferences for foods. The one we know happens to like Chipotle. A usual diet consists of 40% invertebrates, 33% plant foods, and 27% vertebrates. And they can eat snakes as well as your pet’s food. Baby raccoons, called kits, chirp and twitter like birds and come with a built-in disarming cuteness that catches you off guard (for an example, Google “baby raccoon eating a caramel”). Tragically, hunting and cars are the leading causes of death for raccoons, which have been known to live for over 20 years in captivity. Their average life spans have been known to be much shorter in “the wild,” which often means attics and back alleys. So the next time you see a raccoon, give him a firm salute, and say “Procyon Lotor, I respect you.”—but watch your stuff.
ANSWER: President Calvin Coolidge kept two raccoons, Rebecca and Horace, as pets.
Ah, yes. Tennessee’s official State Wild Animal, the raccoon. Neither bear, nor rodent, nor canine—a missing link. The English “raccoon” comes from the Native Americans and means “the one who scrubs with his hands.” As if that weren’t vague enough, the Spanish word for raccoon, “mapache,” came from the Aztecs and means “the one who takes everything in its hands.” Hell, we could all be raccoons according to that. Other languages highlight the raccoon’s good hygiene in combination with a word meaning “bear.” Take the German word for raccoon, “waschbär” (wash bear), for example, or the Japanese word “araiguma,” which means “bear who washes.” But in French and Portuguese, they think of the raccoon as a giant rat, not a bear. We think it’s somewhere in between. Its binomial name “procyon lotor” means “before the dog washer” commenting on the raccoon’s place as a precursor to the modern dog, and also making sure we don’t forget that he washes. F*** it. We have no clue what this thing is. We propose the name “clean washing rat-bear-dog,” just to be inclusive. What we do know is they’re up to no good—in a good way. Research tells us that raccoons are unpredictable. Basically, you can’t trust ‘em. There are numerous myths that explain how the raccoon got its badass facial mask and striped tail (mostly involving