These Adorable, Critically Endangered Pygmy Raccoons in Cozumel Are Teaching One Another to Turn Trash Into Toy Balls
The observations offer rare evidence of a skill being passed among raccoons. But the work also highlights the effects of human pollution at the popular tourist destination
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The tourist-riddled sands of Mexico’s Cozumel Island host one of the planet’s rarest creatures: the pygmy raccoon. Fewer than 200 mature individuals roam the island in the Caribbean Sea, off the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. These pint-size, critically endangered mammals—which reside only in Cozumel—are known for sifting through trash cans to scavenge for leftovers.
In January, however, one young raccoon was seen bypassing the food scraps, instead plucking a receipt from a waste bin. She then carried the slip of paper to a bowl of water, dunked it repeatedly, and rolled it between her front paws and against the sand until it formed a compact, gritty ball. She began batting and chasing her creation across the ground.
She had, in effect, crafted her own toy.
Now, in a study published on 25 August in the journal Wild, researchers report that this playful habit was not an isolated quirk but a skill passed among members of a pygmy raccoon family. It’s also the first documented evidence of “material culture” in the Procyonidae family, which includes raccoons, coatis and ringtails and other tree-climbing mammals.
Material culture describes physical objects and resources such as tools, clothing, toys and furniture that a group creates, uses and leaves behind to define its way of life. Members of a group learn to make or use these items by observing others.
In the animal world, researchers often focus on tool use for a practical purpose, study co-author Nessie O’Neil, a biologist at Miami University in Ohio, writes on her blog. Chimpanzees are known to extract insects with sticks, for example, and dolphins forage with the help of sea sponges. Fabricating an object purely for play is exceptionally rare across the animal kingdom.
Still, “in my mind, [the raccoon’s toy] wasn’t some big major discovery,” O’Neil, who filmed the behavior while studying the impact of tourism on the animals’ health, tells Scientific American’s Isabel Gil. “It was, ‘Look how cute! She’s making a ball!”
Quick fact: How tiny are these raccoons?
Pygmy raccoons, also called Cozumel raccoons, weigh between six and nine pounds, around the same as a newborn human baby. Mainland raccoons, on the other hand, typically weigh between 15 and 40 pounds.
Yet as O’Neil logged 64 hours of field observations, the activity transformed into a family pastime. The pioneer raccoon’s sister was the first to learn the procedure and make her own balls. Their mother attempted to make a ball too but quickly abandoned the task. She may have quit, in part, because she had previously consumed an ounce of a margarita, which seemed to lower her dexterity, the authors write in the paper.
The team watched the siblings play “soccer” with each other and their mother, and in one instance, with two juvenile Cozumel dwarf coatis.
Study co-author Michelle Szydlowski, an anthrozoologist at Miami University, notes that the ball-building behavior makes sense with raccoon biology. “It shouldn’t be surprising that raccoons are where we’re seeing this, just because they’re so tactile; they see with their hands,” she tells New Scientist’s Matt von Hippel.
This jolly discovery has a poignant undertone. Shortly after inventing the toy, the first raccoon fell severely ill. Her poor health was likely caused by malnutrition and toxic pollution from a new nearby beach resort that had razed part of her family’s home range, according to O’Neil’s blog. The animal was removed for veterinary care and subsequently died.
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Because wild culture relies on living knowledge-bearers, her death threatened to erase the custom entirely. But days later, O’Neil watched her surviving sister fish a hamburger wrapper from the bin, wet it, press it against sand and stone, and play with her new ball. The tradition had survived.
Despite their reputation as pests, raccoons are “socially conscious, playful, learning beings,” Michael Kisley, a psychologist at the University of Colorado who was not involved in the work, tells Scientific American. More sightings documenting those aspects—like the ones in the new study—could help strengthen conservation efforts, he adds.
Animal behavior researcher Marek Špinka, of the Institute of Animal Science in the Czech Republic, agrees. “The observations show how complex animal play behavior can be,” Špinka, who was not involved in the study, tells New Scientist. “It will be intriguing to see whether the behavior will get a hold in the population as a new cultural trait or will disappear.”
The team is also eager to see if the ball-making skill continues to spread. “We hope to return and see if the behavior can be observed again and see if it arises in different locations or is passed to other individuals outside this family,” O’Neil and Szydlowski tell IFLScience’s Eleanor Higgs.