It's well documented - you can tell a Raccoon den from any other because it will have small bits of shiny objects gathered up in it.

Dimes, lugnuts, bits of tin foil and glass...

It can't be because they remind Raccoons of fish scales, because lots of animals (us included) catch fish - we just don't keep the scales afterward. They usually fish for crawfish anyway, so that can't be it.

Is it possible that Raccoons have a sense of jewelry, similar to ourselves? They collect useless things because they are pretty, and somehow fun to look at?

Coons also are one of the few animals that actually wash their food as they eat it, but that has been attributed to moistening it so that it digests better. I don't know what to think about that either.

What is it that Raccoons associate shiny polished objects with? It's almost as if they were once either pets or companions of people, and used to be surrounded with artifacts of some kind, so that they have an ancestral memory of such things (bizarre thought, I know. But it makes as much sense as anything)

The only other thing I thought of is that stones are polished in stream beds. But why would an animal fish them out to line a den with them?

It's curious to the point of "Art Bellism"...

 

Is that the same critter that has been spying on you for the last few weeks?
They are natural-born bandits, 'coons can always be seen wearing their burglar mask.
I don't recall what other animals horde shiney stuff, but there are a number of them I believe.

 

Hmmmm.... quite intriguing! They are very clever and curious, maybe they just have a certain sense of style.


GreyWolf, please don't ever stop posting here. I love stuff like this!

 

Crows are the same way.....

 

And that weird bird that makes sculptures also (somewhere in Oceania), pengüins at South Africa also do it. As about the Racoons... they are smart animals, and the smarter a specie the more complex the toys they use (playing is a sign of a high inteligence). Shinning objects probably atract them more because they´re easier to spot.

 

i kinda like the theory greywolf had about mabey 'coons having a ancestorial liking to shiny things... makes me think they might have been the equivalent of housecats or such in the past. who knows.

 

an interesting thing about coons. they like to hoard shiny things, but will also trade you. years ago, when we were kids, a friend had a coon as a pet. everyone was warned about leaving things laying around, but rocky still got you now and then. one day his sister was complaining that rocky had got into her room again. he took a cheap ring off her dresser, and left a gold pocket watch in its place. another time rocky took a piece of tinfoil from the kitchen and left a diamond ring. the funny thing was, no one knew where the ring and watch came from, and rocky was thought to have never left the house.

 

So why exactly are humans attracted to shiny things as well?

My only thought on racoons and leaving shiny objects around their dens would be to confuse predators. Lots of animals and insects have camoflauge to draw attention from their heads. Perhaps the shiny objects are meant to reflect light like a racoons eyes, therfore causing confusion in predators looking for young.

As for Rocky, he seems to have been a very poor business man.

 

.....or a very good employee!!!

 

That can't be true. I've seen cats playing before.

 

I need to get a pet raccoon, especially if he brings me gold and diamonds......lol....or at least he could chase off these lazy cats...

Klatterbox

 

Maybe its just the female racoons doing this?

 

Maybe Fred has a Mr. T starter set at home, and is adding to it...

The odd part, and what I can't quite stop thinking about is that shiny objects almost have to be artifacts. Things that are made, not things from a natural environment.

Maybe it's the strangeness of them that makes them attractive.

Another curious point though is that people also tend to collect shiny things that are otherwise "Mostly Useless".

Before Gold was found to have very helpful electrical properties, it was also mostly useless. But it was positively hoarded by many cultures - and for what? It tarnishes, you make a cup out of it and it will bend real easy, you can't make a decent fish hook out of the stuff...

Diamonds. Probably the hardest substance we know of. Very pretty. Kinda useless though except for optical properties and industrial grinding and cutting. Nobody was using them for that until relatively recently in history...

Rubies make a heck of a laser, other than that they just lay there and glitter...

And so on.

It almost makes me wonder if history is repeating and we too remember these things.

 

As things are going right now, probably Racoons will be taking over soon "Planet of the ´coons"

 

Have you ever given a raccoon a sugar cube, and had it try to wash it before they eat it?