“They are only average in their ability,” said Erler. Raccoons will climb and swim in streams while searching for food, but these skills also come in handy when they’re trying to evade danger. Their modified ankle joints can turn out 180 degrees, allowing the animals to scamper down trees frontwards or backwards. “Raccoon” is from an Algonquin word “aroughcoune,” meaning “one who scratches with his hands.” The raccoon’s scientific name, Procyon lotor, breaks down to “dog-like” (although raccoons are scientifically more closely related to bears) and “washer.”īeyond helping raccoons examine food and unlatch chicken coops and trashcans, their sensitive feet, with five long digits and sharp claws, also come in handy for climbing trees. The perceived washing habit plays into both the raccoon’s scientific and common names. They have highly developed nerves in their front paws, which become more sensitive when immersed in water. Although raccoons are known for “washing” their food, they’re really using their front paws to search for, examine, and dissect food before eating. Birds, eggs, small mammals, crayfish, fruit, carrion, and – yes – human garbage, gardens, and poultry are all on the menu. They live just about anywhere they can find water, from forested areas and wetlands to agricultural landscapes and urban neighborhoods, where these nocturnal animals often get into trouble for raiding the chicken coop – or the trashcans left at the curb. This intelligence makes raccoons adept problem-solvers, and enables them to adapt to different habitats and food sources. That inherent – and sometimes dangerous – curiosity is a sign of intelligence, said Dave Erler, senior naturalist at Squam Lakes Natural Science Center in Holderness, New Hampshire. Clever trappers have been known to catch a raccoon with a scrap of shiny aluminum foil as bait. Among the things raccoons are curious about, apparently, is items that sparkle in the sun. When I was a little girl, a raccoon at a wildlife sanctuary reached long fingers from its enclosure and snagged the beaded hair tie right off the end of my braid. If curiosity killed the cat, it’s put more than one raccoon into a bind, too. But that soft and cuddly exterior belies a fierce and highly intelligent disposition. With their black masks under perfect white eyebrows, their petite black noses, fuzzy ears, and fetchingly striped bushy tails, raccoons are certainly charming to look at. Almost every time I checked the game camera last summer – whether it was stationed near the compost, pointed into the field, or hidden at the edge of the woods – I found photos of one of our region’s most outwardly endearing creatures: the raccoon.
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