"Raccoons living wild in cities in the United States are beginning to show physical changes that resemble early signs of domestication, according to a recent study. The study found that urban raccoons had developed shorter snouts than rural raccoons, with the research produced by the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and published in Frontiers in Zoology. This is an example of a physical trait that appears across domesticated animals that have adapted to living in close proximity to humans over long periods of time,"
"I wanted to know if living in a city environment would kickstart domestication processes in animals that are currently not domesticated, said the study's lead author, Dr Raffaela Lesch, an assistant professor of biology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Would raccoons be on the pathway to domestication just by hanging out in close proximity to humans? To find out, Lesch and her team analyzed nearly 20,000 photos of raccoons uploaded from the US to iNaturalist, a community science platform."
Urban raccoons in the United States display measurable physical changes compared with rural counterparts, including a reduction in snout length. Analysis of nearly 20,000 iNaturalist photographs indicates a 3.56% decrease in snout length from rural to urban raccoons. Shorter snouts match other traits associated with domestication such as smaller teeth, curlier tails, smaller brains and floppier ears. Adaptation to human-associated niches can initiate domestication when a subpopulation exploits readily available refuse and faces fewer large predators. Easy access to food scraps and tolerance of human presence allow raccoons to persist and feed on discarded resources, potentially driving morphological change.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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