Suzanne MacDonald
Appearances
Revisionist History
Rat vs. Raccoon
I originally had thought, and I told Mike this because I thought it was a brilliant insight. Oh, they're the monkeys of North America.
Revisionist History
Rat vs. Raccoon
Yeah, because we don't have monkeys, right? So it's just like, oh, well, you know, maybe they're just like that. They're not primates, but maybe they have evolved to cognitively to be like primates.
Revisionist History
Rat vs. Raccoon
Because we don't know very much, just trying to fill gaps and trying to see what I could find out about them. And they are annoying little critters. So it's been challenging and I wouldn't recommend it to most people.
Revisionist History
Rat vs. Raccoon
And I can tell you, having studied cognition in baby raccoons, they are dumber than sticks. They are so dumb. Just terrible. And every one of our little markers that we use for animal cognition or intelligence or, you know, developmental milestones, they just fail every single one.
Revisionist History
Rat vs. Raccoon
So honestly, that is what disappointed me so much because I always thought, you know, raccoons are the monkeys of North America, but they are not.
Revisionist History
Rat vs. Raccoon
So what they have done is they've evolved to sort of search and destroy. That seems to be their strategy. Lots of species will search and destroy and they find a thing and they break it, right? But there are other situations where you present them with a thing and you can see them looking at it and figuring it out. Yeah, raccoons don't do that. They're just like...
Revisionist History
Rat vs. Raccoon
What can I do to knock this over? What can I do to break this open? What can I do to get whatever it is I need to get? And they just leave destruction in their wake. So they are not sitting and thinking about things. They are all action. Very little thought.