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Urban Raccoons Show Early Signs of Domestication (www.vice.com)

submitted 2 days ago by Icytrees@sh.itjust.works to c/wildfeed@sh.itjust.works

7 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Detailed by Scientific American, a team led by biologist Raffaela Lesch collected nearly 20,000 raccoon photos from users of iNaturalist, a social network/science project that allows its users to log and share scientific observations. Lesch and the team found that across the U.S., raccoons living in cities consistently had snouts about 3.5 percent shorter than those in rural areas. That might not sound like much, but it’s significant in evolutionary terms. It’s a sign of something called “domestication syndrome,” and it isn’t a random occurrence.

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[–] Protoknuckles@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago

IT'S HAPPENING!!!

[–] its_kim_love@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 2 days ago

New housepet just dropped. Jokes aside this could be concerning if there were a marked drop in rural and wilderness racoons. Until then I see this as a sign of biodiversity overcoming our destructive ways.

[–] hakunawazo@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

Domestication level from

to

[–] DeltaWingDragon@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The shorter snouts are a sign of domestication syndrome, but the most important part of domestication is behavior. The article did not mention any behavioral change. Further research is needed.

[–] Icytrees@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I couldn't find a free version of the source article but I did find the original study: https://frontiersinzoology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12983-025-00583-1

Sounds like they're looking nto hormones, next. This study was based on crowd sourced images.

[–] DeltaWingDragon@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

Thanks, that looks interesting!

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Finally some good news!