Do Raccoons Wash Their Food

Research has shown that captive raccoons do douse their food if water is made available to them but raccoons in the wild douse or don t douse depending on where their food is located and its proximity to water.

Do raccoons wash their food. They can be compared with humans on this matter as there are so many people who are very confident to eat their food without feeling the need to wash it. Believe it or not this practice isn t considered to be washing by experts but instead a form of sensory finding out. In the wild a raccoon often gets its food from water using its hands as a way to see under the water. The longer and more interesting answer is raccoons spend a lot of time around water where they search for food by probing the nooks and crannies among the pebbles and.

Despite popular belief that says otherwise they do not wash their food before eating it. Scientists speculated in the past that raccoons suffered from chronic dry mouth or a shortage of salivary glands but studies disproved those theories. It often looks like raccoons are washing their food especially seeing as they have food in their hands and repeatedly dunk it under the water in a washing motion. Their hands have many more touch receptors than ours and they use their hands both as tools and as sense organs.

One of the most puzzling things raccoons do with their nimble paws makes them seem like germophobes. Food that does not come from the water is often rubbed between their fingers or rolled on the ground. What they discovered is that the propensity for raccoons to dip food in water actually has little to do with washing it. Raccoons in captivity have been observed washing their food which is actually repeated dipping and rolling of food items in water.

Whenever they eat near a water source apparently raccoons wash food by dunking it in water and rolling it around in their paws. Instead it s all about making their paws more sensitive to touch so they. This behavior has led to a widespread belief that raccoons wash their food before eating or that they need to soften their food. Raccoons usually wet their food before eating it.

Because of the fact that raccoons use their front paws to be able to grasp and use tools it has developed the idea that a raccoon will dunk its food into water rolling it around before it decides to eat it. People often think that they are washing their food but that is not the reason for the habit. In fact their scientific name procyon lotor literally means washing bear. The short answer is no.

There are some types of raccoons that don t really mind eating the food without washing it.