- The scientific name for a raccoon is Procyon lotor. Lotor means “washer” and comes from the fact that raccoons appear to wash their food before eating it. The word raccoon itself was adopted into the English language from a Native American word meaning “one who rubs, scrubs and scratches with its hands".
- They're native to North America, and that's mostly where they live. If they're found anywhere else it's often because people kept them as pets and they escaped, or they were deliberately released. The highest population of raccoons outside North America is in and around Germany.
- The most important sense for the raccoon is its sense of touch. It not only has very sensitive paws but it has the largest portion of brain specialising in interpreting tactile input than any other animal which has been studied.
- Why do they have Black fur around their eyes? It's thought it reduces glare and helps them see at night, and possibly to help them recognise other individuals, along with the rings on their tails. Since this fur resembles a bandit's mask, it has given the raccoon a reputation for being mischievous.
- Mischievous or not, they are certainly intelligent. They are capable of learning how to deal with complex locking mechanisms and can remember how to do it for up to three years. They are said to be more intelligent than a Dog and slightly less intelligent than a monkey. They're also known to behave quite unpredictably.
- The racial insult, “coon” comes from the fact than in the 1830s, the Whig Party, known to be sympathetic towards African-Americans, used a raccoon as their emblem. Originally, a “coon” was a member of that party.
- The collective noun for a group of raccoons is a nursery or a gaze. A baby raccoon is called a kit.
- Their tails can make up 52% of their length, up to 40cm long. The largest wild raccoon ever weighed 28.4 kg (62.6 lb) and measured 140 cm (55 in) in length. The oldest recorded raccoon lived to be 21, in captivity. In the wild, they can live up to 16 years but many don't even reach the age of two.
- The first person to describe a raccoon in writing was Christopher Columbus. Through the centuries, raccoons have been classified as being related to Bears, dogs, Cats, Badgers or weasels. Since 1780 they have been in a genus of their own, Procyon, which translates as "before the dog" or "doglike".
- There have been a number of raccoons in fiction, dating back to trickster figures in Native American and Aztec mythology such as Azeban; Bobby Coon from the children's books by Thornton Burgess; Rascal from Walt Disney Pictures, based on the book by Sterling North; Meeko from Pocahontas; Ty Coon, from Deputy Dawg and probably the most famous of all, Rocket Raccoon from Marvel Comics.
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