Raccoon Reasoning Research Revealed
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Broadcasting intimate details and useless information from an undisclosed location in New York City. The Last Show with David Cooper
Raccoons are puzzling animals. That's because according to a new study, they solve puzzles just for the fun of it. See what I did there? So if a trash panda causes mischief, is that intellectual curiosity? And if it is, it raises an important question. Are they just freeloading dumpster bandits or are they furry little scientist problem solvers? We're about to discuss everything about raccoons with one of the world's foremost raccoon scientists animal behavior and cognition researcher at the university of british columbia hannah griebling hannah i know you wouldn't describe yourself as one of the world's foremost raccoon researchers but i feel you are welcome to the show oh thank you thank you yeah there are only a few of us out there so wait it's a relatively small community do you all know each other we do yeah there's got to be some guy or some gal out there who's in the raccoon community here like oh you're so annoying
No, I actually, I know them all. Half of them were my Latinates. So we all get along pretty darn well, actually. All right. I'll stop trying to cause drama in your community. Sorry to tell you, yeah. Okay, let's get to the science of it. When people hear raccoon intelligence, we just think of them being geniuses at opening up trash cans and then opening them up and causing chaos. But how smart are they really? Like what kind of level of intelligence does it take to open up a complex mechanism
What unique behaviors do raccoons exhibit when solving puzzles?
on a trash can. Yeah, yeah. So it's definitely something where we are still learning so much about them, exactly how smart they are, because there really hasn't been a lot of formal research done with raccoons and their cognitive abilities. So there were some researchers in the early 1900s that attempted to make them lab animals, like rats and pigeons were used for cognition studies. And they kept... True to raccoon form, they kept escaping their enclosures and causing lots of problems for the researchers. So they were kind of given up on as a research species for quite a bit of time. And then now technology has kind of caught up to where we have all these really great night vision cameras. We have
really cool microchips that we can use to permanently identify them. And so the research now into raccoon cognition has really started expanding in the last 20-ish years, which is really exciting as a scientist. And I'm so sorry, I forgot your original question. Oh, no, no. I was just like, how smart are... There is no question. The question is, how smart are they actually? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I always tell people, you know, there's some people that think like, oh, they can like pick a lock and get it open. You know, they're not there. They're not there yet, but they certainly are really excellent problem solvers. And their main adaptation for foraging, which in the natural environment, they would be foraging.
Is it the thumb? Is it their thumbs? So common misconception, they don't actually have a true thumb. Wait, you're not going to believe some idiot with a microphone on the radio versus a raccoon scientist? I'm pretty sure I'm right and you're wrong. No, I'm kidding. What is that fifth digit then? It is a common misconception. So to have a true thumb, you have to have this right angle here when your thumb sticks out to the side like primates and humans do. And raccoons have wrong angle thumbs is what you're saying. Yeah, exactly. That fifth digit just sits up by their what would be our index finger. So it sticks out a little bit, but it's not a true thumb at that right angle. But they still have a ton of dexterity in those forepaws, primarily because when they are foraging in their natural environments, they are feeling around in streams and in leaf litter and things like that.
And so They have a lot of nerve endings in those forepaws. And so that is like their main sense, the main way that they gather information about their environment and they capture food.
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