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Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication
- jakogut 1y ago> Oddly, tameness has also long been associated with traits such as a shorter face, a smaller head, floppy ears and white patches on fur—a pattern that Charles Darwin noted in the 1800s. Hmm, so evolutionary pressure of existing around humans makes animals cuter. I wonder why we find these features endearing?
- forinti 1y agoI would bet on Paedomorphism, because we find babies and puppies cute.
- scotty79 1y agoExperiment in taming foxes that relied on a single principle of selecting animals that react to humans with least fear and aggression resulted also in those morphological changes. I think it's more about selecting animals that retain youthful curiosity and other traits into their adult life. Youthful morphological features just tag along.
- zamalek 1y agoMy guess: possibly co-evolution. The article subsequently describes the genetics behind things becoming cute - which would have been completely benign to our ancestors (the core of your question). However, those of our ancestors who completed domestication of these animals (by random chance) would have enjoyed more protection from predators, rodents, etc. Those of our ancestors who attempted to domesticate things without the mutations might have had bad companions at best, and would have been predated at worst. This would have provided evolutionary pressure to adopt animals that were showing early signs of domestication. What we call "cute" is merely "likely to cooperate with us."
- burnt-resistor 1y agoAnimal Auditions: Cute vs. Food - Denis Leary https://youtu.be/IZBAtd9rty8 https://youtu.be/IZBAtd9rty8 Perhaps a combination of adaptableness, small size, prodigious reproduction, and cuteness saved some species from being wiped out whereas other species didn't fare so well once humans arrived and transformed their territory. Adapt to urban encroachment or face extinction.
- chrisweekly 1y agoReminds me of signs like "Rabbits for sale: pets or food"
- nom 1y ago> I wonder why we find these features endearing It's a side effect, evolution made sure we take care of our offspring.
- sdwr 1y agoI believe the main biological lever is retaining juvenile features as adults, physically as well as mentally (like with dogs). What we see as cute is an honest signal that they are more child-like: less aggressive, more trusting and pro-social.
- LeifCarrotson 1y agoI also think that this is the central cause of a wide variety of domestic/cute adaptations. There are too many separate features to believe that raccoons and dogs and cats and a dozen other species all select for these same elements independently. I no longer have the book on hand, but read a few months ago that this correlation between juvenile traits and domestication was one of the main theses of Barrett's "Supernormal Stimuli" in Chapter 4. She cited a few studies of fox domestication [1], [2] and other works to support these theories. [1]: https://courses.washington.edu/anmind/Trut%20on%20the%20Russian%20fox%20expt%20-%20Amer%20Sci%201999.pdf https://courses.washington.edu/anmind/Trut%20on%20the%20Russ... [2] https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(05)01327-8 https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(05)...
- skeezyjefferson 1y agoanimals werent kept as pets until recently - they were all (dogs, livestock etc, cats technically) working animals.
- dvh 1y agoI thought it's because adrenalin and melatonin are produced in the same brain region, or something like that.
- nine_k 1y agoSince humans associate cuteness with large eyes and small body size, nocturnal / twilight animals, like raccoons, sugar gliders, cats, squirrels, etc have a larger chance to be domesticated as pets. Daytime, larger animals (e.g. sheep, goats, or even rabbits) have a larger chance to be domesticated as food.
- breakpointalpha 1y agoI've heard that the same process of domestication towards "cuteness" has been outlined in human evolution too. Larger head-size relative to the body, larger eyes, smaller jaws and noses, longer limbs, etc. Interesting parallels across species towards less aggression, greater pro-social behavior, more physical traits that shout "trust me, I'm harmless." Almost like pro-social, intelligent team co-operation is a huge advantage compared to solo predatory behavior.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- I_AM_A_SMURF 1y agoWe're programmed to take care of (human) babies. That's pretty fundamental to our species survival. Those features activates the same areas of our brain that babies' faces activate. Feeling that something is "cute" is the evolutionary way that our brain is using to make us care of our kids.
- actionfromafar 1y agoPut slightly differently, they look cute because we are all mammals and they are cute.
- oxw 1y ago> “I’d love to take those next steps and see if our trash pandas in our backyard are really friendlier than those out in the countryside,” she says. Would they have to measure "biological" friendliness, comparing lab raised countryside-descended and city-descended raccoons? Domesticated animals can be very unfriendly. Feral cats for example.
- potato3732842 1y agoIt'll be interesting to see what their methodology is. Trapping tends to piss off any raccoon regardless of urban vs rural.
- IAmBroom 1y agoHonestly, measuring the distance to which a single raccoon approaches is a pretty good proxy. City birds are self-domesticating right now; wrens willing to be on the same table as a human get more fries to eat. (And I've actually used this metric on them: the same one or two reliably get closer than the others.)
- ForOldHack 1y agoOh right. But how do they taste? Asking for a friend.
- IAmBroom 1y agoNot great. My late dog and I agreed on that (although he had his raw, after freezing). The raw meat is even smelly. Edit: Dexter did say that, after a few days of aging in the forest, the flavor improved considerably. He was even willing to share.
- burnt-resistor 1y agoFoxes too, generally. The average temperament tends to include curiosity, playfulness, and wariness but not moral fear of humans. People keep them as household pets so I'd call that domesticable. An experiment to speed up the process of fox domestication was undertaken. [0] Foxes tend to not be like almost all wolves (and many wolfdogs) which are reserved, not prone to social openness, and hard to read like American Akitas which makes them dangerous by dominance challenging, miscommunication, and untrustworthiness. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox
- kevin_thibedeau 1y agoFox urine reeks. You don't want to live anywhere near that.
- IAmBroom 1y agoWhat is "moral fear of humans"? As crepuscular animals, they are very, very afraid of humans.
- skeezyjefferson 1y agofrom when a racoon is born, they are told that humans are evil. its obviously not true but the stereotype persists
- rufus_foreman 1y agoSaw two of them dead on the side of the road this morning in the stretch of a couple miles, that will drive some evolution.
- foo-bar-bat 1y agoNo, it won't. Rabies might.
- foo-bar-bat 1y agoRaccoons have been living literally inside of houses for centuries. One was kept as a pet in Jamestown Virginia in the 1600s. Another lived in the White House in the 1900s. Surely, not a decade has passed between have there been NO domesticated raccoons in the US? If living near humans changes animals, that started at least 25,000 years ago here in North America. Not recently. My neighbors had a pet raccoon growing up. It lived inside but would come and go. The people who wrote this article seem out of touch with the topic they chose to pretend to be experts about?
- tharne 1y ago> The people who wrote this article seem out of touch with the topic they chose to pretend to be experts about? This is quickly becoming the norm for experts, unfortunately. I keep seeing more an more people with educational expertise in something that they have zero hands-on or practical experience with. I remember being at a social event once and chatting with someone who was a business professor at any Ivy League university. Making small talk, I asked him which companies he'd worked at, and he told me that he had gone the academic track and started teaching during and after getting his PhD (in exactly what I don't remember). I remember being stunned that students would pay over $60k a year to learn about business from someone who'd never worked for or started a business.
- markdown 1y ago> I remember being stunned that students would pay over $60k a year to learn about business from someone who'd never worked for or started a business. Were you stunned that your parents paid lots of money to put you in front of educators from kindergarten to college? Why would you restrict yourself to learning from one businessman when you can get learn from an educator who has distilled the experiences of hundreds if not thousands of business people?
- NetMageSCW 1y agoBecause they are terrible at distilling experience and teach bad lessons? (MBA, anyone?)
- tptacek 1y agoIf dogs started out as wolves and ended up as English bulldogs, imagine how stupid raccoons will eventually look.
- dmix 1y agoProbably something like a koala bear
- indoordin0saur 1y agoMost cat breeds still look more or less like their wild relatives.
- dvh 1y agoHave you seen short legged cats?
- IsTom 1y agoThat's a recessive trait that is fatal if they get two copies of it. When left to their devices they'll return to being normal cats in a few generations.
- Levitating 1y agoYes and I'd like it to stop
- nine_k 1y agoMost dogs, arguably, too. But there are French bulldogs, dachshunds, and pugs. Among domestic cats, there are Persian cats and Sphinx cats.
- nunez 1y agoAnd then you have the fossa.
- card_zero 1y agoThat's only a pretend cat, it's a lemur-thing really. Wait no, a civet-thing.
- inasio 1y agoSkunks apparently make great pets (but need to have their stink glands surgically extracted), the pitch is smart like a cat but faithful like dogs
- cinntaile 1y agoI think dogs in general are smarter than cats.
- Sohcahtoa82 1y agoDogs are certainly better at looking intelligent. I think dogs, being a more social animal, are more eager to please, and so are willing to be trained. Cats can vary wildly. One of my cats seems dumb as a box of rocks and haven't even grasped the idea of object permanence. If she's tracking a laser, and I move it around a corner, she can't figure out where it went. She goes from intense staring and tracking to standing up and looking around, confused. When I bring the laser back around the corner, she's instantly back to squatting and tracking it.
- estimator7292 1y agoI've known many dogs that fail this test, too.
- coderenegade 1y agoOur dog remembers the location of toys at the park over long periods of time, though being able to sniff them out probably helps. He also expresses genuine surprise and suspicion when he sees novel objects (e.g. the large Christmas tree that was put up in the park, a horse and rider), because he knows they're not usually there. He doesn't like fat people, which is embarrassing, but I also knew a dog as a teenager that freaked out anytime it saw someone who wasn't Asian. Just given the amount of back and forth communication that happens between most owners and their dogs, they're very clever. Cats are some of the best hunters in the animal kingdom, but I've never felt that they're there in the way that dogs are.
- cosmic_cheese 1y ago
- xnx 1y agoPresident Calvin Coolidge had a pet raccoon in the White House: https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2021/01/when-rebecca-the-raccoon-ruled-the-white-house/ https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2021/01/when-rebecca-the-raccoon-r...
- smallerize 1y agoJust in time to spread a really awful parasite. https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/09/human-cases-of-raccoon-parasite-may-be-your-best-excuse-to-buy-a-flamethrower/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/09/human-cases-of-racco... "severe, frequently fatal, infections of the eyes, organs, and central nervous system. Those who survive are often left with severe neurological outcomes, including blindness, paralysis, loss of coordination, seizures, cognitive impairments, and brain atrophy"
- hojomojo 1y agoWe treat deer for ticks, etc. A decade ago, I think we would have been smart enough to treat wild raccoons for this parasite, but the time of human domestication is over. In another decade, I expect humans will be marking their territories with feces again.
- theoreticalmal 1y agoI, for one, am looking forward to that
- davidw 1y agoRFK Jr is right there with you.
- shawn_w 1y ago[flagged]
- mindcrime 1y agoAmusing, albeit mostly irrelevant, sidebar... On Facebook, there's been this running gag/joke/meme/whatever going for at least the last year, where anytime the official North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission page posts anything, a large portion of the comments quickly turn into a discussion of the merits (or lack thereof) of pet raccoons[1]. I don't know exactly how it started. Somebody innocently asked "How do I get a permit for a pet raccoon?" and the page replied "You can't, they are illegal in NC" or something prosaic like that I imagine. But it became a big "thing" and now raccoon talk is everywhere. The page controllers play along with it, which is part of why it's kept going so long I guess. But sometimes they'll get semi-serious and post something like "Look, all joking aside, the reason pet raccoons are not allowed is because no matter how friendly raccoons look, they are wild animals, not domesticated, and they can be a hazard to you, and your family and <blah, etc, etc>". Soooo... I'm just waiting to see somebody post this very article in a comment on that page with a note saying "Suck it, NCWRC!" (all in a spirit of good fun, of course). [1]: or one or more of another of a small set of topics, including flounder, pet alligators, armadillos, UFO's, and the possibility that the person running the page is the product of secret government genetic engineering experiments involving "all of the above". It's... complicated. EDIT: Welp ,that took about as long as I expected. ROFL. https://fogbeam.com/racoons_domesticating.png https://fogbeam.com/racoons_domesticating.png
- deadbabe 1y agoWould be cool if it eventually leads to a Cambrian explosion of raccoon varieties after generations of breeding desirable traits.
- ForOldHack 1y agoThey might even become intelligent!
- mr_toad 1y agoFor thousands of years after domestication there were only a handful of dog breeds; hounds, sheepdogs etc, which were bred for their utility rather than appearance. It’s only in the last couple of hundred years that dog breeds have exploded.
- GeekyBear 1y agoJust remember to remain wary of the cute ones. > Raccoons are a rabies reservoir in the eastern United States, extending from Canada to Florida and as far west as the Appalachian Mountain range. Within these areas, 10% of raccoons that expose people or pets have rabies, making them one of the highest rabies-risks in the United States. https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/php/protecting-public-health/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/php/protecting-public-health/inde...
- fracus 1y ago> 10% of raccoons that expose people or pets have rabies I don't understand the language of this quote. What does it mean for an animal to expose people?
- quadyeast 1y agoyou would think that 100% of racoons that expose people to rabies have rabies.
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- kotaKat 1y agoAn “exposure” in this instance to rabies would be physical contact - a bite, scratch, or from its saliva on an open wound for instance.
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- MathMonkeyMan 1y agoIt's an odd framing. Out of R_t total raccoons, R_e bite or scratch (potentially "expose") humans. R_e / 10 of those were carrying rabies. So it could be that raccoons almost never bite/scratch humans, such that the behavioral effects of rabies are a significant motivator. It also could be that raccoons bite/scratch humans all of the time, and a ton of those raccoons have rabies. The latter is scary, but the former is likely the truth. I wonder if increased interactions between humans and raccoons will lead to a reduction in that 10% figure (more reasons to bite humans).
- morkalork 1y agoI think I know one or two family members who have been aiding and abetting this evolutionary process
- smm11 1y agoJust name coyotes to the AKC, would you?
- alexsngai 1y agoI want to see an intelligence-optimized domesticated raccoon breed, like the raccoon equivalent of a border collie
- aerostable_slug 1y agoImagine trying to keep an animal like that out of food it's not supposed to have (to include fish tanks). The dang things would probably learn to pick locks with their cute little hands.
- BirAdam 1y agoThis is precisely why I think exceptionally smart animals should never be pets: octopus, corvids, raccoons…
- PepperdineG 1y agoRaccoons are also social animals so they like to maintain good relations. My mom is friends with wild raccoons and they never try and break in even though they know there is food inside. The raccoons try and open the sliding glass door but they don't become home invasion robbers if they don't find food outside and can't get in through the door. What's funny is that her cats like to watch the raccoons for entertainment and will touch paws on glass but if only a screen door separates them the cats get very upset and frighten the raccoons who just want to be friends. Their intelligence seems to help them get along, like there's one raccoon that my mom has named and it comes when called and can understand my mom through the Ring doorbell. It understands that it is her voice but not her presence so will wait like a dog that has taken obedience. The raccoon is disabled having only one eye, so it survives through intelligence like befriending my mom and is the friendliest of all the raccoons.
- neom 1y agoGet a pet rat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV9z0c1hjnA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV9z0c1hjnA (I'll convince you all to get pet rats eventually!!! :))
- mayhemducks 1y agobut are they edible though? I mean if they were domesticated fully, what would we do with them? I like my dogs thank you, ain't no way I'm having a coon for a pet.
- ForOldHack 1y agoDespite no one actually mentioning the white tr*sh cookbook ... I do not see the point behind raising racoons for food. They do NOT taste like chicken. How do you think your dogs would taste? I like your dogs too, and ain't no way I would disrespect them... Pets are not food sources. But a coon.. . They seem nice enough until they fight over food ... Then they become _ <- insert unfavoroable political party.
- IAmBroom 1y ago> How do you think your dogs would taste? Weird question. My preconceptions don't overrule my tongue. (And the answer is: hairy. Very hairy.)
- mayhemducks 1y agoApparently coons used to be quite a popular delicacy in the south once upon a time. Dogs are predators, which is a very primal reason I could never imagine eating one. I've eaten bear, and it tasted terrible. Come to think of it, every predator tastes terrible. But the racoon is an omnivorous scavenger. I must admin I'm coon curious now. :)
- mr_toad 1y ago> Come to think of it, every predator tastes terrible. Tuna tastes delicious. But you may be right about mammals.
- IAmBroom 1y agoEdible, yes. Tasty, no.
- nunez 1y agoPeople have been trying to make the house raccoon a thing: https://old.reddit.com/r/raccoons https://old.reddit.com/r/raccoons From what I remember spending time on this topic, raccoons need super challenging locks as toys and TONS of engagement from their keepers because they get bored easily and bored raccoons == ultra destructive raccoons. Also, rabies.
- caymanjim 1y agoThey're pretty great pets. We had one for a while when I was a kid. Its mom got run over and we nursed it and raised it for a few months. Instinctively used the same litter box as the cats. Hung out on the couch sitting on my shoulder watching TV. Friendly and playful. Would follow people around and play with toys. The biggest challenge is that they basically have hands. He would climb up the kitchen cabinets, grab a box of cereal, open it up and sit there eating out of it like a toddler. We only had him for a few months before reintroducing him to the woods behind the house. I've wanted a pet raccoon again ever since.
- mrsvanwinkle 1y agobest HN story ive read in a while. i want a raccoon that eating tinyfist-fuls of cereal steaight from the box it opened, watching TV
- 4ggr0 1y agosounds very similar to a stoner-roommate to be honest. a bit chaotic, but peaceful. hungry, and bored.
- bitwize 1y ago"What do you think we have these wonderfully articulate fingers for? To scratch our asses?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqTt_jDDCio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqTt_jDDCio
- riffraff 1y agoThere's a Japanese anime from the '70s called something like "rascal the racoon", based on an American book, which tells the story of a kid with a pet raccoon. I've wanted a pet raccoon since I saw this on TV in the '80s, and raccoons aren't even a thing in Europe :(
- baking 1y agohttps://archive.ph/GLiI5 https://archive.ph/GLiI5
- phantomathkg 1y agoSomehow, it remind me of the Studio Ghibli anime Pom Poko, centering around the theme of the expansion of the Tokyo forcing Japanese Racoon to adopt human life. Could domestication happened simple because we human expand too much?
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- VerifiedReports 1y agoIt's interesting that there was no mention of the "cuteness" collection of traits that we find in common among infants of various species: short noses, big foreheads, and so forth. https://www.bbcearth.com/news/the-code-for-cuteness https://www.bbcearth.com/news/the-code-for-cuteness
- kilroy123 1y agoI personally know at least one person who has a pet racoon. They've been raising it since it was a baby or pup(?). It's pretty interesting to see their Instagram stories.
- _the_inflator 1y agoSo Kassel, Germany, may have hope to be less harassed in the future? FYI, Kassel kinda is the so-called capitol of raccoons. 30k+ raccoons life there, according to estimates. I certainly would not want to live there. It is crazy how these animals flock together and invade properties. And they aren't shy anymore due to the reverse positive reinforcement they receive by not killing them. Yes, it is of course in Germany forbidden to kill an invading predatory species - even on your property. This is Germany 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DJXsI_A5DU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DJXsI_A5DU https://www.kassel.de/buerger/sicherheit_und_ordnung/tierschutz/waschbaer.php https://www.kassel.de/buerger/sicherheit_und_ordnung/tiersch...
- zukzuk 1y agoToronto, Canada is hands down the raccoon capital of the world. Something like 100k raccoons live in the city. I can’t get my head around how such big animals manage to live all around us in such densely populated place. I suppose it helps that they are cartoonishly adorable. But they are increasingly getting really, really big. It’s just a matter of time before the chonker living in my neighbour’s shed bullies me out of my house.
- myrmidon 1y agoKassel is under 200k people, with ~100 raccoons/km² though! Curiously, that raccoon population was established legally and intentionally in the 30s to bolster local fur production; later efforts to eradiacte the animals (for being pests from an agriculture perspective) have been given up. Damage to local ecosystems seems fortunately pretty limited, even though the raccoons are highly successful and spreading.
- yabones 1y agoAll you need to know about Toronto is that the generational effort to build a raccoon-resistant trash can has failed every time. They're unstoppable beasts! Example: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/raccoon-resistant-bins-not-1.4615190 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/raccoon-resistant-bin...
- chasing0entropy 1y agoRacoons, even city's racoons are terrible beasts. Sure, they are friendly when they aren't upset; Take a treat away from the hands of the sweetest racoon and it will either pounce on you to retrieve it, scream bloody murder, or pounce and slash at you until you retreat. Racoons, especially in the city, will kill and eat an older housecat or easy to access domestic chickens without hesitation. Declawing them helps, but nature happens when a declawed racoon feels a call to roam and is outmatched by even a small hawk or possum.
- SpaceL10n 1y agoTo be fair, if you take something away from me that's mine, there's not much difference between the raccoon and myself.
- lagniappe 1y agoYou should work on that.
- BeFlatXIII 1y agoWhy promote such a loser and defeatist attitude?
- lookatthisone 1y ago[dead]
- christkv 1y agoI can't imagine it's easy to domesticate a trash panda. They are also devious little creatures, way smarter than you expect.
- AnishLaddha 1y agotalk to me when we start domesticating bears!
- bookofjoe 1y agono paywall: https://archive.ph/GLiI5 https://archive.ph/GLiI5