Raccoon

The raccoon, sometimes called the North American, northern or common raccoon 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, and a body weight of. 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 for females in cities, to 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 ' 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 ' 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- and κύων , was first given to the genus by Gottlieb Conrad Christian Storr in 1780. Procyon having been used in Classical Latin to refer to a star, the full name Procyon lotor means, in Latin, 'before-dog washer'. The animal's observed habit of "washing" or "dousing" 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, who saw them as too sympathetic to African-Americans. Soon after that, the term became an ethnic slur, especially in use between 1880 and 1920. 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 in the second edition of his Systema Naturae, then as Ursus Lotor in the tenth edition. 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.

Evolution

Based on fossil evidence from Russia and Bulgaria, the first known members of the family Procyonidae lived in Europe in the late Oligocene about 25 million years ago. Similar tooth and skull structures suggest procyonids and weasels share a common ancestor, but molecular analysis indicates a closer relationship between raccoons and bears. After the then-existing species crossed the Bering Strait at least six million years later in the early Miocene, the center of its distribution was probably in Central America. Coatis and raccoons have been considered to share common descent from a species in the genus Paranasua present between 5.2 and 6.0 million years ago. This assumption, based on morphological comparisons of fossils, conflicts with a 2006 genetic analysis which indicates raccoons are more closely related to ringtails. Unlike other procyonids, such as the crab-eating raccoon, the ancestors of the common raccoon left tropical and subtropical areas and migrated farther north about 2.5 million years ago, in a migration that has been confirmed by the discovery of fossils in the Great Plains dating back to the middle of the Pliocene. Its most recent ancestor was likely Procyon rexroadensis, a large Blancan raccoon from the Rexroad Formation characterized by its narrow back teeth and large lower jaw.

Subspecies

As of 2005, Mammal Species of the World recognizes 22 subspecies of raccoons. Four of these subspecies living only on small Central American and Caribbean islands were often regarded as distinct species after their discovery. These are the Bahamian raccoon and Guadeloupe raccoon, which are very similar to each other; the Tres Marias raccoon, which is larger than average and has an angular skull; and the extinct Barbados raccoon. Studies of their morphological and genetic traits in 1999, 2003, and 2005 led all these island raccoons to be listed as subspecies of the common raccoon in Mammal Species of the World's third edition. A fifth island raccoon population, the Cozumel raccoon, which weighs only and has notably small teeth, is still regarded as a separate species.
The four smallest raccoon subspecies, with a typical weight of, live along the southern coast of Florida and on the adjacent islands; an example is the Ten Thousand Islands raccoon. Most of the other 15 subspecies differ only slightly from each other in coat color, size and other physical characteristics. The two most widespread subspecies are the eastern raccoon and the Upper Mississippi Valley raccoon. Both share a comparatively dark coat with long hairs, but the Upper Mississippi Valley raccoon is larger than the eastern raccoon. The eastern raccoon occurs in all U.S. states and Canadian provinces to the north of South Carolina and Tennessee. The adjacent range of the Upper Mississippi Valley raccoon covers all U.S. states and Canadian provinces to the north of Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico.
The taxonomic identity of feral raccoons inhabiting Central Europe, Causasia, and Japan is unknown, as the founding populations consisted of uncategorized specimens from zoos and fur farms.

Subspecies	Image	Trinomial authority	Description	Range	Synonyms
Eastern raccoon P. l. lotor Nominate subspecies		Linnaeus, 1758	A small and dark subspecies with long, soft fur.	Nova Scotia, southern New Brunswick, southern Quebec, and southern Ontario south through the eastern United States to North Carolina, and from the Atlantic coast west to Lake Michigan, Indiana, southern Illinois, western Kentucky, and probably eastern Tennessee.	annulatus brachyurus fusca gularis melanus obscurus rufescens vulgaris
Key Vaca raccoon P. l. auspicatus		Nelson, 1930	A very small and pale-furred subspecies.	Key Vaca and doubtless closely adjoining keys of the Key Vaca Group, a central section of the main chain off the southern coast of Florida.
Florida raccoon P. l. elucus		Bangs, 1898	Generally a medium-sized and dark-colored subspecies with a prominent rusty rufous nuchal patch.	Peninsular Florida, except the southwestern part inhabited by P. l. marinus, north to extreme southern Georgia; grading into P. l. varius in northwest Florida.
Snake River Valley raccoon P. l. excelsus		Nelson and Goldman, 1930	A very large and pale subspecies.	Snake River drainage in southeastern Washington, eastern Oregon, and southern Idaho, the Humboldt River Valley, Nev., and river valleys of northeastern California.
Texas raccoon P. l. fuscipes		Mearns, 1914	A large, dark grayish subspecies.	Texas, except extreme northern and western parts, southern Arkansas, Louisiana, except the delta region of Mississippi, and south into northeastern Mexico, including Coahuila and Nuevo León, to southern Tamaulipas.
† Barbados raccoon P. l. gloveralleni		Nelson and Goldman, 1930	A small, dark-furred subspecies with a lightly built skull.	Known only from the Island of Barbados.	solutus
Baja California raccoon P. l. grinnelli		Nelson and Goldman, 1930	A large, pale-furred subspecies with a high and broad skull.	Southern Baja California from the Cape region north at least to San Ignacio.
Mexican raccoon P. l. hernandezii		Wagler, 1831	A large and dark grayish subspecies with a flattish skull and heavy dentition.	Mexican mainland, extending southward through Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and northern Panama.	crassidens dickeyi mexicana shufeldti
Upper Mississippi Valley raccoon P. l. hirtus		Nelson and Goldman, 1930	A large and dark-furred subspecies, whose pelage is usually suffused with ochraceous buff.	Upper Mississippi and Missouri River drainage areas from the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains east to Lake Michigan, and from southern Manitoba and probably southwestern Ontario and southeastern Alberta south to southern Oklahoma and Arkansas.
Torch Key raccoon P. l. incautus		Nelson, 1930	A small subspecies with very pale fur.	Big Pine Key Group, near the southwestern end of the chain of Florida Keys.
Matecumbe Key raccoon P. l. inesperatus		Nelson, 1930	Similar to P. l. elucus, but smaller and grayer and with a flatter skull.	Key Largo Group, embracing fringing keys along the southeast coast of Florida, from Virginia Key south to Lower Matecumbe Key.
Tres Marias raccoon P. l. insularis		Merriam, 1898	A large, massive-skulled subspecies with short and coarse fur.	Tres Marías Islands, off west coast of Nayarit, Mexico.	vicinus
Saint Simon Island raccoon P. l. litoreus		Nelson and Goldman, 1930	Similar to P. l. elucus, being of medium size and having dark fur.	Coastal strip and islands of Georgia.
Ten Thousand Islands raccoon P. l. marinus		Nelson, 1930	A very small subspecies with heavy dentition.	Keys of the Ten Thousand Islands Group, and the adjoining mainland of southwestern Florida from Cape Sable north through the Everglades to Lake Okeechobee.	maritimus
Bahamian raccoon P. l. maynardi		Bangs, 1898	A small and slightly dark subspecies with a lightly built skull and dentition.	Known only from New Providence Island, Bahamas.	flavidus minor varius
Mississippi Delta raccoon P. l. megalodous		Lowery, 1943	A medium-sized subspecies, with a massive skull and pale yellow fur suffused above with black.	Coast region of southern Louisiana from St. Bernard Parish west to Cameron Parish.
Guadeloupe raccoon P. l. minor		Miller, 1911	A small subspecies with a delicate skull, a dark gray coat, and a slight ochre tint on the neck and shoulders.	Guadeloupe in the Lesser Antilles.
Pacific Northwest raccoon P. l. pacificus		Merriam, 1899	A dark-furred subspecies with a relatively broad, flat skull.	Southwestern British Columbia, except Vancouver Island, northern, central, and western Washington, western Oregon, and extreme northwestern California.	proteus
Colorado Desert raccoon P. l. pallidus		Merriam, 1900	One of the palest subspecies, around the same size as P. l. mexicanus.	Colorado and Gila River Valleys and adjoining territory from the delta north to northeastern Utah, and east to western Colorado and northwestern New Mexico.	ochraceus
California raccoon P. l. psora		Gray, 1842	A large and moderately dark subspecies with a broad, rather flat skull.	California, except the extreme northwest coastal strip, the northeastern corner, and southeastern desert region, ranging south through northwestern Baja California to San Quentin; extreme west central Nevada.	californicus
Isthmian raccoon P. l. pumilus		Miller, 1911	Similar to P. l. crassidens in color, but has a shorter, broader, and flatter skull.	Panama and the Canal Zone from Porto Bello west to Boqueron, Chiriqui, though the limits of its range are unknown.
† Short-faced raccoon P. l. simus		Gidley, 1906	A Pleistocene subspecies similar to P. l. excelsus, but with a deeper lower jaw and a more robust dentition.	California.
Vancouver Island raccoon P. l. vancouverensis		Nelson and Goldman, 1930	A dark-furred subspecies, similar to P. l. pacificus but smaller.	Known only from Vancouver Island.