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Raccoons: A Natural History
The word raccoon is drawn from the Native American Algonquian language. Their term arakun roughly translates to “he who scratches with his hands.” Anyone who has found a raccoon rummaging around in a once securely closed trash container can attest to how skillful raccoons are with their front paws. In fact, they have four times as many sensory receptors in their forepaw skin as they do in their hindpaws, a ratio similar to that of human hands and feet. Samuel Zeveloff explores this trait and much more in his accessible natural history of raccoons.
Written with the general reader in mind, Raccoons presents detailed information on raccoon evolution, physical characteristics, social behavior, habitats, food habits, reproduction, and conservation, as well as their relationship with humans and many other topics. The section on distribution and subspecies focuses on the raccoon’s current range expansion, and the material on their cultural significance demonstrates this mammal’s unique status in different North American cultures.
Written with the general reader in mind, Raccoons presents detailed information on raccoon evolution, physical characteristics, social behavior, habitats, food habits, reproduction, and conservation, as well as their relationship with humans and many other topics. The section on distribution and subspecies focuses on the raccoon’s current range expansion, and the material on their cultural significance demonstrates this mammal’s unique status in different North American cultures.
240 pages, Paperback
First published February 17, 2002
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49 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 30, 2020
Our Night Visitors
A raccoon has been coming into our home,so I wanted to read about them, but there are no books on kindle that are exactly what I was looking for. This is the only one that I could find, So, unless you are science minded, this book is not for you, and it wasn’t for me either.
I tried wading through material on types of raccoons, their fur color, skull sizes and shapes and just couldn’t do it. After a while, I got brain fog. Then I found some of what I was looking for, but it was not a cute story about how someone made a pet out of a raccoon, instead, it was about what they ate. Well, I know for certain that they will eat anything, because one night my husband made some of his delicious fish tacos. He has made them often, but this time he used the jalapenos from his garden, and they were too hot. I could hardly eat them. So, what I didn’t eat went outside for the critters, and I believe that it was one of the raccoons that ate them. So, you see, they will eat anything.
The top of the list, in this book, was fruit. They love sweets, and fish follows as well as everything else you can think of. They will even eat dead, rotten, smelly things. The book didn’t mention that they would go after cats, and I am glad for that. It did mention mice and other small animals. And I must say that I have not seen mice in our home for years, not since we have three feral cats, only one house cat now, and raccoons and hawks. Still, even with that chapter and those on the love life of raccoons, this book didn’t cut it for me.
Our raccoon problems began a year after ur dog was put to sleep. It took one of them that long to find her doggie door. One evening when we were watching TV, a raccoon walked into the living room, saw my husband, and ran into the bedroom. Our cat was freaking out, so I grabbed her and went into the bathroom with her and closed the door. This was not because I was afraid, but because I was not sure if our cat, Taffy, would run out of the hourse and not come back for hours. She’s like that.
My husband went into the bedroom and told me laterd that the raccoon looked frightened. Hee opened the French door for the critter and walked out of the room. The raccoon escaped. The next incident was when I was awakened by noises in the dining room. Thinking that my husband as up making noises, I felt for him in bed. He was still sleeping. I got up and grabbed my flashlight. Walking into the dining room, I heard the wooden blinds rattling, but I saw nothing with my poor eyesight. I then went into the kitchen. Nothing. I went back into the dining room and the wooden lid was off the crock pot where we keep the cat food. In the morning, I put the cat food into a large shortening tin that I had purchased from an antique store one year.
Not wising to lock our own cat out of the house, we just began raccoon proofing our house. For one thing, the cat food bowl is put up at night.
But then we were missing a loaf of bread and didn’t know if we had even purchased a loaf since we had been eating the bread we keep in the refrigerator. But the next time we left aloaf on the counter, it had been torn open and partially eaten. Now we keep it in our antique bread tin. Then my husband forgot to put away the tortillas. That package was also torn into and eaten. And as I was writing this review at 4 am., my cat began hissing and then ran to the back door, stillhissing. I imagine that the raccoon wanted inside, not knowing that I was awake. So far, loving fruit, the raccoon has not climbed up on the other counter where we keep it.
I had a friend that claimed that a raccoon would get into my cupboards and grab everything in sight. I am not so sure of this, because this little guy/gal has not tried it, and most of our food is in glass jars, which is something that I learned to do when living in the country just to keep out mice. If this raccoon become destructive, we will close the cat door.
So, what do we have living here? Two raccoons with three baby dubs that eat at our feral cat station where we put cat food and table scraps for the other critters. We even feed the possum, and the turtles. So far, the three grown foxes and one young one have not come around, but who knows what goes on at night? We also have a skunk, and hopefully, it will never enter our home. Then we have ground hogs that feed at the cat station as well. And, well, deer that eat our tomatoes in our garden.
Still, I wanted a book that would tell me if a raccoon would come in and destroy our house or mostly our kitchen by getting into our refrigerator using its cleverly made hands. I wanted to read about how cute they were and especially, I wanted a book by someone who had kept them as pets, but, NO, Amazon has not converted those books to kindle.
I just love those types of nature books where people keep wild animals as pets, but then at the end of every story, you have to read about the death of the animal. Why can’t they just have a chapter called, The End of Charlie or Suzie? Then I would know not to read it, or better yet, just end the story before the animal dies.
I have a friend who won’t read books if the animal gets hurt or dies at the end. I understand. She comes to our book group, and we are reading Wilderness by Lance Weller this month. She read the last chapter, and the dog in the story was not mentioned. I said, “He wasn’t harmed, he just died of old age,” but that doesn’t really help her, for he is still dead. It is just so true that animals get our sympathy more than humans, that is, unless they are a bear, alligator, or some other mean critter. Still, I hate that the polar bears are dying out, but then I don’t have to deal with them living in my back yard.
Update: December 30, 2020
Shortly after this, my husband was sitting at his desk ner the cat door. It was midnight. He heard some critter tryihg to get in. He saw its nose. A skunk? He shooed it away and put the door in the cat door. It came back and began scratching. He looked out the window. A large skunk. Then we began putting the cat food away at night. How often has that largbe polecat been in our house?
This morning my husband said that while he was sitting at his desk he heard some scratching near the cat bowl. He got out his flashlight. It was a young skunk, and when it saw him, it ran under our hutch. He opened the kitchen door and went into the living room and turned on the TV. “We could make a pet out of it,” I said. Even though he is not the master of our house, no one is. We will put the cat food up at night. We need a dog.
A raccoon has been coming into our home,so I wanted to read about them, but there are no books on kindle that are exactly what I was looking for. This is the only one that I could find, So, unless you are science minded, this book is not for you, and it wasn’t for me either.
I tried wading through material on types of raccoons, their fur color, skull sizes and shapes and just couldn’t do it. After a while, I got brain fog. Then I found some of what I was looking for, but it was not a cute story about how someone made a pet out of a raccoon, instead, it was about what they ate. Well, I know for certain that they will eat anything, because one night my husband made some of his delicious fish tacos. He has made them often, but this time he used the jalapenos from his garden, and they were too hot. I could hardly eat them. So, what I didn’t eat went outside for the critters, and I believe that it was one of the raccoons that ate them. So, you see, they will eat anything.
The top of the list, in this book, was fruit. They love sweets, and fish follows as well as everything else you can think of. They will even eat dead, rotten, smelly things. The book didn’t mention that they would go after cats, and I am glad for that. It did mention mice and other small animals. And I must say that I have not seen mice in our home for years, not since we have three feral cats, only one house cat now, and raccoons and hawks. Still, even with that chapter and those on the love life of raccoons, this book didn’t cut it for me.
Our raccoon problems began a year after ur dog was put to sleep. It took one of them that long to find her doggie door. One evening when we were watching TV, a raccoon walked into the living room, saw my husband, and ran into the bedroom. Our cat was freaking out, so I grabbed her and went into the bathroom with her and closed the door. This was not because I was afraid, but because I was not sure if our cat, Taffy, would run out of the hourse and not come back for hours. She’s like that.
My husband went into the bedroom and told me laterd that the raccoon looked frightened. Hee opened the French door for the critter and walked out of the room. The raccoon escaped. The next incident was when I was awakened by noises in the dining room. Thinking that my husband as up making noises, I felt for him in bed. He was still sleeping. I got up and grabbed my flashlight. Walking into the dining room, I heard the wooden blinds rattling, but I saw nothing with my poor eyesight. I then went into the kitchen. Nothing. I went back into the dining room and the wooden lid was off the crock pot where we keep the cat food. In the morning, I put the cat food into a large shortening tin that I had purchased from an antique store one year.
Not wising to lock our own cat out of the house, we just began raccoon proofing our house. For one thing, the cat food bowl is put up at night.
But then we were missing a loaf of bread and didn’t know if we had even purchased a loaf since we had been eating the bread we keep in the refrigerator. But the next time we left aloaf on the counter, it had been torn open and partially eaten. Now we keep it in our antique bread tin. Then my husband forgot to put away the tortillas. That package was also torn into and eaten. And as I was writing this review at 4 am., my cat began hissing and then ran to the back door, stillhissing. I imagine that the raccoon wanted inside, not knowing that I was awake. So far, loving fruit, the raccoon has not climbed up on the other counter where we keep it.
I had a friend that claimed that a raccoon would get into my cupboards and grab everything in sight. I am not so sure of this, because this little guy/gal has not tried it, and most of our food is in glass jars, which is something that I learned to do when living in the country just to keep out mice. If this raccoon become destructive, we will close the cat door.
So, what do we have living here? Two raccoons with three baby dubs that eat at our feral cat station where we put cat food and table scraps for the other critters. We even feed the possum, and the turtles. So far, the three grown foxes and one young one have not come around, but who knows what goes on at night? We also have a skunk, and hopefully, it will never enter our home. Then we have ground hogs that feed at the cat station as well. And, well, deer that eat our tomatoes in our garden.
Still, I wanted a book that would tell me if a raccoon would come in and destroy our house or mostly our kitchen by getting into our refrigerator using its cleverly made hands. I wanted to read about how cute they were and especially, I wanted a book by someone who had kept them as pets, but, NO, Amazon has not converted those books to kindle.
I just love those types of nature books where people keep wild animals as pets, but then at the end of every story, you have to read about the death of the animal. Why can’t they just have a chapter called, The End of Charlie or Suzie? Then I would know not to read it, or better yet, just end the story before the animal dies.
I have a friend who won’t read books if the animal gets hurt or dies at the end. I understand. She comes to our book group, and we are reading Wilderness by Lance Weller this month. She read the last chapter, and the dog in the story was not mentioned. I said, “He wasn’t harmed, he just died of old age,” but that doesn’t really help her, for he is still dead. It is just so true that animals get our sympathy more than humans, that is, unless they are a bear, alligator, or some other mean critter. Still, I hate that the polar bears are dying out, but then I don’t have to deal with them living in my back yard.
Update: December 30, 2020
Shortly after this, my husband was sitting at his desk ner the cat door. It was midnight. He heard some critter tryihg to get in. He saw its nose. A skunk? He shooed it away and put the door in the cat door. It came back and began scratching. He looked out the window. A large skunk. Then we began putting the cat food away at night. How often has that largbe polecat been in our house?
This morning my husband said that while he was sitting at his desk he heard some scratching near the cat bowl. He got out his flashlight. It was a young skunk, and when it saw him, it ran under our hutch. He opened the kitchen door and went into the living room and turned on the TV. “We could make a pet out of it,” I said. Even though he is not the master of our house, no one is. We will put the cat food up at night. We need a dog.
April 26, 2021
I judged this book by its cover, really I did. With that big close-up photo of that furry face, I assumed that this would be a pop-sci book directed more at children, in contrast to the Natural History of Raccoons by Dorcas MacClintock, which I read a few months back and appeared (as indeed it was) to be a more scientific text. And I was wrong - Zeveloff's book is just as solidly scientific, and it is certainly not directed at children. Both books, if I'm honest, took a fair amount of wading through, regardless of the fact that they are both relatively short. I have to give MacClintock the edge, however.
Zeveloff's book can be a bit dry in places - the chapter on the two dozen odd subspecies of raccoons nearly put me to sleep, as there is only so often you can describe various shades of grey coats without losing me entirely. Credit where it's due, though - the chapter on the evolution of the species was particularly interesting, and the chapter "Living Arrangements" was really readable and my favourite of the bunch. If I hadn't read the MacClintock first I might have given this four stars, but it lacks the appealing anecdotes of the former, and it lacks the gorgeous illustrations. Don't get me wrong - Zeveloff's raccoon book also has a handful of nice illustrations, but they are not nearly so frequent, and they are supplemented by a number of not especially clear photographs.
I liked it, I did, but I think I am raccooned out at this point, and if I had to choose one of these two books to read again it would be the other one. Mostly, I admit, for the pictures.
Zeveloff's book can be a bit dry in places - the chapter on the two dozen odd subspecies of raccoons nearly put me to sleep, as there is only so often you can describe various shades of grey coats without losing me entirely. Credit where it's due, though - the chapter on the evolution of the species was particularly interesting, and the chapter "Living Arrangements" was really readable and my favourite of the bunch. If I hadn't read the MacClintock first I might have given this four stars, but it lacks the appealing anecdotes of the former, and it lacks the gorgeous illustrations. Don't get me wrong - Zeveloff's raccoon book also has a handful of nice illustrations, but they are not nearly so frequent, and they are supplemented by a number of not especially clear photographs.
I liked it, I did, but I think I am raccooned out at this point, and if I had to choose one of these two books to read again it would be the other one. Mostly, I admit, for the pictures.
May 31, 2014
I bought and read this primarily as background study for a story I might write someday. And, of course, raccoons are cool (as are animals in general). I rarely buy books, but my available libraries had no such books, and this one is well rated, low cost, and even cited in subsequent research literature.
Anyway, because of my motivation, I wasn't as interested in the related species or evolutionary hypotheses, although that turned out interesting, too. It was fascinating to see the distinct perspectives shown by fossil analysis vs. DNA, for example, and to see which this author thought more reliable. And these other matters give additional context to the raccoons themselves, which is nice.
Overall, though, this book had enough on behavior, anatomy, development, social organization, communication, culture, disease, weather, interaction with humans/others, diet, population levels, geography, and so on to give me at least a basic perspective on what I wanted to know. I would know at least some now on how to look further, too, and what questions to ask. It was also interesting to see where experts still claimed ignorance on matters related to this seemingly very familiar species.
I had mixed feelings on the lack of references within the main text. The claim was that this was for readability. The end of the book still has references by chapter, but sometimes I'd have preferred to know the specific reference for a claim as I was reading. But still, do expect this to be a technical book even if it's aimed at a fairly general audience.
Overall, I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Anyway, because of my motivation, I wasn't as interested in the related species or evolutionary hypotheses, although that turned out interesting, too. It was fascinating to see the distinct perspectives shown by fossil analysis vs. DNA, for example, and to see which this author thought more reliable. And these other matters give additional context to the raccoons themselves, which is nice.
Overall, though, this book had enough on behavior, anatomy, development, social organization, communication, culture, disease, weather, interaction with humans/others, diet, population levels, geography, and so on to give me at least a basic perspective on what I wanted to know. I would know at least some now on how to look further, too, and what questions to ask. It was also interesting to see where experts still claimed ignorance on matters related to this seemingly very familiar species.
I had mixed feelings on the lack of references within the main text. The claim was that this was for readability. The end of the book still has references by chapter, but sometimes I'd have preferred to know the specific reference for a claim as I was reading. But still, do expect this to be a technical book even if it's aimed at a fairly general audience.
Overall, I enjoyed it quite a bit.
August 16, 2023
I wanted to learn more about raccoons. And I did. Although I think I would have been just as satisfied with a children’s book on the topic and wouldn’t have fallen asleep so many times while reading haha.
February 19, 2020
A book said to be about raccoons that does its best to talk about anything else.
Annnnnd... it's apparently (used here because the author uses this term, a lot) a wee bit racist. The treatment of the knowledge of the "tribes" of Native Americans was not handled as well as I would have liked.
I wanted a book that talked about raccoons, so that I could understand them better, I do not feel like I gained anything worth the read. I could have found all of the information that I wanted within five minutes on Google and it would have been succinct and full of less other, irrelevant and frustrating "information".
My quest to understand raccoons continues, hopefully my future reads will be less frustrating.
Annnnnd... it's apparently (used here because the author uses this term, a lot) a wee bit racist. The treatment of the knowledge of the "tribes" of Native Americans was not handled as well as I would have liked.
I wanted a book that talked about raccoons, so that I could understand them better, I do not feel like I gained anything worth the read. I could have found all of the information that I wanted within five minutes on Google and it would have been succinct and full of less other, irrelevant and frustrating "information".
My quest to understand raccoons continues, hopefully my future reads will be less frustrating.
April 5, 2024
I don't understand why this book has such negative reviews. A lot of people are saying it's to scientific but what did you expect picking up a book about a specific animal? I thought it was a lovely read that was very interesting and helped my understanding of the animal. I loved the statistics and research that was done and I gained a lot of new information I wouldn't have found with a simple Google search.
That being said I am an individual that has dedicated years to animal science and have degrees and am licensed in the field so if you want a children's book with "this is raccoon, raccoon is nocturnal" this isn't the book for you.
That being said I am an individual that has dedicated years to animal science and have degrees and am licensed in the field so if you want a children's book with "this is raccoon, raccoon is nocturnal" this isn't the book for you.
March 11, 2023
I just can't understand how you can make a book about such an exciting subject so boring. On the one hand, it attempts to be very accessible (explaining concepts like "carnivores" and whatnot) but on the other hand, it is so hard to get through it - not because of the complexity but because of a particular style well-familiar to anyone who found themselves dozing off over a textbook, no matter how motivated they felt to pay attention.
December 6, 2021
NF
176 pages
An interesting look at the Raccoons evolution,
habitats, food, and behavior.
176 pages
An interesting look at the Raccoons evolution,
habitats, food, and behavior.
December 26, 2007
Really dry, scientific writing not for the faint of heart. Raccoons are fascinating creatures and it really wouldn't have taken much to liven up the text. But, good info for those who are into natural history.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews