Raccoon is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
	This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on June 22, 2010.
Article milestones Date Process Result September 9, 2008 Good article nominee Listed December 21, 2008 Featured article candidate Promoted
Current status: Featured article

Mammals High‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mammals, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of mammal-related subjects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MammalsWikipedia:WikiProject MammalsTemplate:WikiProject Mammalsmammal High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Archives

Archive 1

This page has archives. Topics inactive for 90 days are automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III if there are more than 2.

I'm no IPA professional, but I speak the first syllable of Raccoon as though it were the first part of the word 'rack' or 'back', and I'm pretty sure that's not the "ae" sound indicated in the phonetic pronunciation... -Ayeroxor (talk) 11:14, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The IPA ligature -- the two graphs joined, not separate "a" and "e" -- does indeed represent the sound you indicate; cf. (/[invalid input: 'en-us-Kansas.ogg']ˈkænzəs/) DavidOaks (talk) 11:51, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the edification :) - Ayeroxor (talk) 20:22, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is it just me or is the raccoon in the taxobox image unusually dark? I double-checked the species to make sure I was on the page for Procyon lotor and not some other raccoon. I've seen many raccoons over the past twenty years, but they were always primarily a light peppered gray color, not this dark blackish-brown. (See the raccoons in the "Behavior" section as an example.) Is this some kind of regional variation? Because I've never seen a P. lotor that looked like that. 74.243.20.144 (talk) 16:03, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I somewhat agree, although the ones I see (in Ontario) can also be reddish-brown. Dger (talk) 01:36, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've been intimately observing many many clans of raccoons here, and none of the colors in the images are out of the norm. They can range from light-gray to a dark chocolate-brown, and as Dger stated, even have tinges of reds in them. One year there was one that had a remarkable gold-colored coat. Due to how many are here I've learned to recognize them almost like they know how to recognize each other (not always easy), but their wide range of coloring patterns helps. Though I usually tend to give them names by more obvious features: Gimpy missing a leg from a hunter or a fight, Bobbie missing a tail, Saddle missing a patch of fur on her back from an injury, Ol' Grumpy Gertrude from her gray-whiskers and face and the non-stop growling she does whether my hand is in her food dish or not, she starts growling even before she enters the yard, funny, but up close she's just as kind and respectful as any of them, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.251.115.210 (talk) 03:44, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This section mentions that raccoons are present in "upscale neighborhoods of the Castro in San Francisco". This a strange statement, seeing as Raccoons are present in many other SF neighborhoods as well, including many that are not upscale at all. It should be edited so that SF is listed by city name only, both for accuracy, as well as consistency with the other cities listed in this section, which have no individual neighborhoods mentioned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Capitan planeta (talk • contribs) 08:26, 1 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Removed phrase. Dger (talk) 01:50, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

{{edit semi-protected}}

Vandalism on first line should be removed

65.30.33.173 (talk) 03:14, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

 Done, thanks. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 16:17, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Would like an anchor on "as food" section so I can reference this section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.246.53.108 (talk)

Did you try Raccoon#As food? Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky) 11:26, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wanting to add a reference to fox news saying that live raccoons consist of 1500 calories. As a pop culture reference.

Kkline81 (talk) 17:10, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

do you have the ref available so it can be checked and included. Monkeymanman (talk) 20:14, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Due to feral-cats devastating the food-chain in my woods, about a dozen years ago a mother and her two cubs came to my door in the middle of the day, desperate for help. She couldn't even make milk for her cubs because the cats that people released in the area had destroyed all the food sources for all the wild animals here. I've always had a soft-spot for raccoons, from the time when I raised one from a pup once. Well, she told two friends, and they told two friends ... until about 3 years later I had counted as many as 60 raccoons in my yard every summer night, coming for their yearly whelping-season booster of special vitamin-rich critter-cake that I make for them. I've since learned of some extremely interesting social-behaviors of theirs. Even going so far as to learning some of their "language". When it came time that food would run out for the night, I had to find an easy way to peacefully disband them all, so I found their signal for "lets go forage ...". Works every time when I crouch-down in the middle of the hoard and I mimic it. After a few disappointed growls and grunts, they eventually all wander off for the night and don't return til the next evening.

Would observations and knowledge of this nature (no pun intended) be of interest to anyone? Or just like all Wiki editors that live in their basements, will you only accept words written elsewhere as proof and be allowed?

For example, just tonight one of the mothers brought EIGHT of her new cubs to my door. This is what prompted me to go in search of their litter counts. Four to five is the norm here, six is common, "Fertile Myrtle" was the only one that brought seven every year. But now one of them brought EIGHT of them to show off to me. In the 12 or so years I've been doing this, this litter of 8 is the first time I've seen that many. I wonder what their record litter-count is now. (And I feel so sorry for that mother raccoon. I raised just one from a pup and it was a non-stop handful. She has my full respect.)

They trust me enough that they'll even let me play with their cubs while the mother takes a much-needed belly-up snooze in the yard. Using me as a temporary baby-sitter. Just to let you know how closely I've been observing and knowing the total family-circus cycles they go through every year. Make no mistake, these are all 100% wild raccoons, they just seemed to have accepted me as one of their own in order to survive the devastation that's been done to their habitat by encroachment of man. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.251.115.210 (talk) 03:27, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is basically a compendium of information taken from reliable sources. Personal observations and knowledge are not permitted (see wp:OR). BC  _{talk to me} 03:39, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, no problem. But your loss. Because I'll never be publishing my observations anywhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.251.115.210 (talk) 03:47, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No reason to not contribute to Wikipedia. We would welcome your input. Just keep in mind that this is an encyclopedia and as such all input must come from credible, reliable sources. Encyclopedias do not include such things as personal anecdotes, observations (with questionable conclusions), opinions, or bias. Including these things does harm to the encyclopedia's credibility as an information source. So, not really Wikipedia's loss, sorry.-- BC  _{talk to me} 18:27, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent). There are some possible references for litter size via this Google search:

• http://www.google.com/#q=raccoon+litter+size --Timeshifter (talk) 00:17, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I came here looking for info on hibernation and did not see any. I found this:

• http://www.raccoonfacts.net/do_raccoons_hibernate/do_raccoons_hibernate.html

More info and possible references:

• http://www.google.com/#q=raccoon+hibernation --Timeshifter (talk) 00:18, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Starting in note 15 there are many references to a work by Hohmann, but the full reference for that work is never given. 216.164.58.114 (talk) 13:46, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See section "References" for full details (ISBN 9783886273010). Materialscientist (talk) 23:44, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]