Raccoon

The raccoon ( or US: , Procyon lotor), sometimes called the North American, northern or common raccoon (also spelled racoon) to distinguish it from other species of raccoon, is a mammal native to North America. It is the largest of the procyonid family, having a body length of 40 to 70 cm (16 to 28 in), and a body weight of 5 to 26 kg (11 to 57 lb). Its grayish coat mostly consists of dense underfur, which insulates it against cold weather. The animal's most distinctive features include its extremely dexterous front paws, its facial mask, and its ringed tail, which are common themes in the mythologies of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas surrounding the species. The raccoon is noted for its intelligence, and studies show that it can remember the solution to tasks for at least three years. It is usually nocturnal and omnivorous, eating about 40% invertebrates, 33% plants, and 27% vertebrates. The original habitats of the raccoon are deciduous and mixed forests. Still, due to their adaptability, they have extended their range to mountainous areas, coastal marshes, and urban areas, where some homeowners consider them to be pests. As a result of escapes and deliberate introductions in the mid-20th century, raccoons are now also distributed across central Europe, the Caucasus, and Japan. In Europe, the raccoon has been included on the list of Invasive Alien Species of Union Concern since 2016. This implies that this species cannot be imported, bred, transported, commercialized, or intentionally released into the environment in the whole of the European Union. Though raccoons were previously thought to be generally solitary, there is now evidence that they engage in sex-specific social behavior. Related females often share a common area, while unrelated males live together in groups of up to four raccoons to maintain their positions against foreign males during the mating season and against other potential invaders. Home range sizes vary anywhere from 3 ha (7.4 acres) for females in cities, to 5,000 ha (50 km2; 19 sq mi) for males in prairies. After a gestation of about 65 days, two to five young known as "kits" are born in spring. The kits are subsequently raised by their mother until dispersal in late fall. Although captive raccoons have been known to live over 20 years, their life expectancy in the wild is only 1.8 to 3.1 years. In many areas, hunting and vehicular injury are the two most common causes of death.

Etymology

Names for the species include the common raccoon, North American raccoon, and northern raccoon. In various North American native languages, the reference to the animal's manual dexterity, or use of its hands, is the source for the names. The word raccoon was adopted into English from the native Powhatan term meaning 'animal that scratches with its hands', as used in the Colony of Virginia. It was recorded on John Smith's list of Powhatan words as aroughcun, and on that of William Strachey as arathkone. It has also been identified as a reflex of a Proto-Algonquian root *ahrah-koon-em, meaning '[the] one who rubs, scrubs and scratches with its hands'. The word is sometimes spelled as racoon. In Spanish, the raccoon is called mapache, derived from the Nahuatl mapachtli of the Aztecs, meaning '[the] one who takes everything in its hands'. The taxonomic name of the raccoon is Procyon lotor. The genus name, Procyon, derived from the Greek προ- (pro) 'before' and κύων (cyon) 'dog', was first given to the genus by Gottlieb Conrad Christian Storr in 1780. The full name Procyon lotor means, in Latin, 'before-dog washer'. The animal's observed habit of "washing" or "dousing" (see below) is the source of its name in other languages. For example, the French raton laveur means 'washing rat'. The colloquial abbreviation coon is used in words like coonskin for fur clothing and in phrases like old coon as a self-designation of trappers. In the 1830s, the United States Whig Party used the raccoon as an emblem, causing them to be pejoratively known as "coons" by their political opponents. Viewed by these opponents as too sympathetic to African-Americans, the term soon became an ethnic slur, especially in use between 1880 and 1920 (see coon song). The term is still considered offensive. Dogs bred to hunt raccoons are called coonhound and coon dog. Due to having a habit of eating human garbage in urban environments, raccoons are also colloquially known as "trash pandas".

Taxonomy

In the first decades after its discovery by the members of the expedition of Christopher Columbus, who were the first Europeans to leave a written record about the species, taxonomists thought the raccoon was related to many different species, including dogs, cats, badgers and particularly bears. Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, placed the raccoon in the genus Ursus, first as Ursus cauda elongata ('long-tailed bear') in the second edition of his Systema Naturae (1740), then as Ursus Lotor ('washer bear') in the tenth edition (1758–59). In 1780, Gottlieb Conrad Christian Storr placed the raccoon in its own genus Procyon, which can be translated as either 'before the dog' or 'doglike'. It is also possible that Storr had its nocturnal lifestyle in mind and chose the star Procyon as eponym for the species.

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