About Raccoon

• Raccoons have a keen sense of touch.
• Raccoon means Curiosity ~ Dexterity ~ Disguise
• Raccoon rhymes with baboon.
• Raccoons never den more than 1,200 feet from a permanent water source.
• Male racoons used to give girls the bones as a form of love charm.
• The raccoon is one of the primary rabies carriers.
• The name raccoon comes from an Algonquian word that means he who scratches with his hands.
• Raccoons are nocturnal, which means they sleep for most of the day and are active during the night.
• Raccoon prints look like tiny human baby handprints and footprints.
• During cold weather, raccoons will sleep for several days, but do not hibernate.

Raccoon or coon (Procyon Lotor) is a medium-sized mammal native to North America. Procyon means "before dog" and lotor means "washer." The word raccoon is derived from the Algonquin word ahrah-koon-em - meaning "[the] one who rubs, scrubs and scratches with its hands".
Raccoons are familiar animals with masked faces and ringed tails. They have five toes on both the front and hind feet.

Due to its adaptability, the raccoon has been able to use urban areas as a habitat. The first sightings were recorded in a suburb of Cincinnati in the 1920s. Since the 1950s, raccoons have been present in metropolises like Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Toronto. Their original habitats are deciduous and mixed forests, but due to their adaptability they have extended their range to mountainous areas, coastal marshes, and even urban areas, where some homeowners consider them pests. Raccoons are omnivorous and eat a variety of foods, including frogs, fish, amphibians, shellfish, insects, birds, eggs, mice, carrion, berries, nuts, vegetation, salamanders, insects, berries, corn, cat food, and human garbage.

Raccoons can carry rabies, a lethal disease caused by the neurotropic rabies virus carried in the saliva and transmitted by bites. he increasing number of raccoons in urban areas has resulted in diverse reactions in humans, ranging from outrage at their presence to deliberate feeding. The fur of raccoons is used for clothing, especially for coats and coonskin caps. Native American tribes not only used the fur for winter clothing, but also used the tails for ornament.