The only thing keeping most of us from owning a raccoon is their reputation for being insane, rabid freaks. Other than that, they look tailor-made for domestication. They’re adorable little chubsters with cute little masks on their faces who have cute humanlike hands that they use to reach out for things, which seems useful from a purely practical, household-chore perspective.
That dream may one day become real, as urban raccoons are showing early signs of domestication, according to a research team out of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Detailed by Scientific American, a team led by biologist Raffaela Lesch collected nearly 20,000 raccoon photos from users of iNaturalist, a social network/science project that allows its users to log and share scientific observations. Lesch and the team found that across the U.S., raccoons living in cities consistently had snouts about 3.5 percent shorter than those in rural areas. That might not sound like much, but it’s significant in evolutionary terms. It’s a sign of something called “domestication syndrome,” and it isn’t a random occurrence.
Domestication syndrome is when animals start developing traits we humans find appealing, like shorter faces, adorable floppy ears, cute little white patches on their fur, reduced fear responses, and smaller heads that you can just hold in your hands and squeeze as you make cutesy-wootsy sounds so high-pitched only that animal can hear it.
It’s the same traits early humans unintentionally selected when animals began hanging near our campsites. The big breakthrough when it comes to raccoons came in 2014, when evolutionary biologists linked these changes to neural crest cells, the embryonic cells that help form everything from skulls to pigmentation to adrenaline systems. If their development is dialed down even a little, you get cuter, calmer animals who stick around for the free food.
That’s the same selection pressure raccoons face when they choose between the quiet dignity of forest living and the all-you-can-eat dumpster buffet behind a Chipotle. To thrive around humans, you need to be bold enough to swipe our scraps but polite enough not to freak us out. Over generations, that balance rewards critters who are a little more chill, and that chill, easy-going vibe ends up showing on their faces, so we know they’re chill on sight.
Again, this isn’t anything new. We’ve seen it happen with dogs and cats, and more recently with urban foxes and mice. Raccoons would just be the latest members of the domestication club.
Lesch hopes to study whether urban raccoons also differ genetically or hormonally from their rural counterparts, and whether other species like opossums, armadillos, and the like are following the same path.
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