When a curious raccoon broke into an Ashland, Virginia, liquor retailer in December 2025, sampled the inventory and handed out on the toilet ground, the tale went viral inside of mins. The native animal refuge’s Fb submit used to be picked up by means of nationwide and global retailers and briefly impressed raccoon-themed cocktails, “trashed panda” products or even a cameo on “Saturday Night Live.”
For me, the tale hit just about house. The shop that hosted this under the influence of alcohol bandit sits simply blocks from the small behavioral neuroscience laboratory the place I started investigating raccoon brains about 15 years in the past. Despite the fact that the so-called drunken raccoon made questionable selections after breaking into the liquor retailer, the species – Procyon lotor – is understood for its spectacular intelligence, interest and problem-solving talents.
In spite of being some of the intriguing mammals dwelling along people, raccoons have have shyed away from the clinical highlight. Why aren’t extra neuroscientists and psychologists learning raccoons? What have researchers overlooked concerning the mammalian mind by means of that specialize in rodents as an alternative?
Any individual had fun.
Why raccoons aren’t lab staples
Within the U.S., it’s estimated that laboratories use greater than 100 million rodents, together with mice and rats, each and every yr. Rodents are perfect for analysis as a result of they reproduce simply and adapt neatly to confinement. Scientists have adapted intensive analysis gear to check them. Lengthy ahead of rats ruled psychology labs, raccoons have been if truth be told a number one candidate for animal fashions of problem-solving and intelligence.
That ended when scientists learned they’d met their cognitive fit. In a single learn about, researchers reported that every one raccoon members escaped throughout the laboratory air flow machine.
Unsurprisingly, scientists promptly shifted to rodents. Practicality – now not clinical suitability – in the long run topped the rat as king of the laboratory. I’ve studied rats for many years, and I will be able to verify that none have ever disappeared into the ceiling.
Neither puppy nor pest
People have an ambivalent courting with raccoons. They seem too wild to be domesticated, too endearing to be handled purely as pests and too ubiquitous to be regarded as unique natural world. Even President Calvin Coolidge, who famously gained a raccoon supposed for the dinner desk from a supporter in Mississippi, ended up protecting it as a liked White Space puppy.
And the position confusion continues nowadays with glimpses of humanlike behaviors in raccoons as they input our dwelling areas. One file described raccoons interacting with playground apparatus at a kid care middle on Canada’s west coast in techniques very similar to human youngsters, or even breaking into school rooms as though they have been auditing the morning lesson.
Raccoons understand how to get round.
RLO’Leary/Second Open
Impressed by means of Montessori training rules, I visited a raccoon rehabilitation middle in Saskatoon, Canada, known as Bandit Ranch Rehab a couple of years in the past. After introducing younger raccoons to slinkies, puzzles and blocks, I sat in awe as they interacted with those gadgets with the centered enthusiasm of preschoolers on a undertaking.
This interspecies confusion appears to be mutual. Contemporary proof means that city raccoons are changing into more and more tolerant of people, particularly when it fits them. However they’re fast to go away when interest or alternative calls.
Raccoon creativeness
The drunken Ashland raccoon captured international consideration as it have compatibility the narrative other folks have projected onto the species: mischievous, opportunistic, artful and greater than slightly humanlike. However their refined brains and psychological capacities, aligning extra with primates than different mammals, are much more intriguing.
Early behavioral analysis instructed that raccoons can be informed a job, stroll away and later go back to unravel it correctly – as though having mentally rehearsed the answer. By contrast, different species, together with canine and rats, had to care for steady focal point. Scientists have speculated that raccoons have psychological imagery functions very similar to people.
Raccoons had some notes for the creator’s pupil, too.
Kelly Lambert, CC BY-NC-SA
When a rogue raccoon scaled a 25-story skyscraper in Minneapolis a number of years in the past, I couldn’t assist however surprise what that animal used to be expecting on the best. Do raccoons shape inner representations of long run results? And if this is the case, how a lot company and foresight do they carry to their selections?
To respond to those questions, I’ve collaborated with natural world biologists, veterinarians and neuroscientists across the nation to check what could also be some of the underestimated and understudied brains within the animal kingdom.
What’s occurring throughout the raccoon mind?
Running with neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel, my laboratory on the College of Richmond has discovered that raccoons pack an astonishing choice of neurons – an quantity related to primates – into their brains. Scaled as much as measurement, a raccoon mind would comprise kind of the similar choice of neurons as a human mind.
We additionally discovered that raccoons possess specialised fast-conducting mind cells referred to as von Economo neurons, that are additionally present in people, different nice apes and a couple of further large-brained mammals. In apes, those neurons seem in each the insula – part of the mind vital for processing inner frame states – and the anterior cingulate, which performs a key position in emotional legislation. In raccoons, those neurons are provide most effective within the insula and now not within the anterior cingulate.
This neural association would possibly assist provide an explanation for the species’ placing mixture of artful problem-solving and speedy decision-making right through exploration – steadily resulting in dangerous behaviors that may have unlucky penalties. Those findings carry the likelihood that raccoon neuroscience may be offering helpful insights into the neural foundations of impulse regulate and distracted consideration.
The dexterity of raccoon arms permits their humanlike escapades.
Zocha_K/iStock by the use of Getty Photographs Plus
In collaboration with ecologist Sara Benson-Abram’s analysis workforce, we additionally discovered that raccoons with extra refined cognitive talents had extra neural cells within the hippocampus, reinforcing the concept their studying and reminiscence capacities map onto equivalent mind programs as the ones in other folks. Taxi drivers in London, who steadily use their wisdom of the 25,000 streets in London, actually have a greater hippocampal space.
Along with their spectacular brains, raccoons’ dexterous arms play a key position of their cognitively inventive escapades. Certainly, researchers have discovered that raccoon forepaws are mapped onto their cerebral cortex – the outer layer of the mind – in a equivalent way as human arms. Each soak up a large number of actual property within the mind. As journalist Carl Zimmer wrote, “The hand is where the mind meets the world.”
What raccoons can train us concerning the human mind
As I argue in my upcoming e book “Wild Brains,” working out raccoon intelligence calls for staring at them within the environments they make a selection – now not confining them to the small, easy areas that swimsuit rats and mice. So-called dwelling laboratories that track natural world with out proscribing their habits could also be scientists’ absolute best likelihood at unlocking the secrets and techniques of this species’ exceptional thoughts.
In my graduate coaching, I used to be taught to keep away from anthropomorphizing animal analysis topics – to withstand the temptation to challenge human ideas and feelings onto nonhuman minds, as a result of human brains most likely give a contribution to uniquely human cognitive and emotional reports. However primatologist Frans de Waal later offered the helpful counterpoint of anthropodenial: the unsuitable assumption that animals can not percentage emotional or cognitive capacities with people just because they aren’t human.
The drunken Ashland raccoon captured international consideration now not simply for the reason that tale used to be humorous, however as it felt acquainted. Folks known one thing of themselves on this curious, impulsive, problem-solving animal navigating an overly human surroundings. A willingness to lean clear of anthropodenial – whilst final grounded in rigorous science – would possibly open new paths for working out raccoon intelligence and, in the long run, the splendidly advanced human mind.
