Do Raccoons Wash Their Food Before Eating

Raccoons in the wild do not wash their food but the behavior is seen in some captive raccoons.

Do raccoons wash their food before eating. This behavior has led to a widespread belief that raccoons wash their food before eating or that they need to soften their food. One of the most puzzling things raccoons do with their nimble paws makes them seem like germophobes. They live in places where there is water raccoons prefer to live in places where they can have access to water and trees and their home is usually in a hollow limb or the trunk of a tree. Raccoons in captivity have been observed washing their food which is actually repeated dipping and rolling of food items in water.

You like me have probably always heard about how raccoons like to wash off their meal before they dine. Scientists speculated in the past that raccoons suffered from chronic dry mouth or a shortage of salivary glands but studies disproved those theories. Despite popular belief that says otherwise they do not wash their food before eating it. And it has been noticed that racoons refuse to eat if they cannot find water around.

In fact their scientific name procyon lotor literally means washing bear. Some other kinds of racoons eat without washing their food. In the wild a raccoon often gets its food from water using its hands as a way to see under the water. Raccoons usually wet their food before eating it.

One of the more unusual ones that you may have heard in your years is that raccoons will wash their food before eating it. Most observations of raccoons occur around water leading to the myth that they wash their food before eating. How this came to get started is not exactly known but for generations it has been believed that a raccoon will take its food that it has foraged and wash it before it needs whatever it is captured. People often think that they are washing their food but that is not the reason for the habit.

But there is one kind of furry mammals called racoons which wash their food before eating. The short answer for why raccoons wash their food is they don t. However raccoons are clean animals but the story with washing their hands before they eat is a bit too much for us to believe. Raccoons obtain much of their food by searching water with their sensitive paws and the behavior is.