Racoon

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Research

Creature Name: Raccoon

Observations by: PCs:Malulani jael MacMurray

Creature Type: Animal

Creature Subtype: Rodent

CTS trainable: Not yet (under Team review).

Introduction

Easily recognizable by their grey, salt-and-pepper bodies with a black mask over the eyes and rings around the tail. They are usually nocturnal.

Feeding Habits

Dousing of food is a myth probably because of observance of raccoons searching for food near stream beds. It is my guess that they are just very nearsighted and very much oriented to touch and the 'washing' of their food is more them feeling out what they have in their paws. They eat insects, worms and other animals. They also will acorns and walnuts as well as fruit. It will fish for frogs, catch toads and fish. They will also eat bird eggs. Depending on where they reside, they also will take advantage of garbage pits.

Disposition and Social Habits

Mostly solitary, they will occasionally co-habitate with the same sex during the times they are not foraging for food. Males do not often co-habitate with more then a total of four. Mothers tend to isolate themselves until their kits have been raised to maturity. They don't tend to defend territory outside of mating season.

Habitat

Racoons depend on trees to flee predators, so they tend to avoid very open land. They prefer woodlands and forests. They also tend to avoid areas with high concentration of smooth barked trees like beech trees, preferring the hollows in old oaks to den in. They also favor land that has a lot of marshes and streams.

Fylgia

Most compatible: Dire Badger

• The raccoon is much like the badger, skunk, weasel, gertrude fisher and dire badger.

Other notes

Raccoon teaches us to be curious, thirst for adventures, to explore and expand our boundaries. This spirt totem also teaches us to be adaptable and agile. The mask teaches us that none of us are quite what we seem. sometimes even to ourselves. Raccoon reminds us to unmask the truth, to accept the many aspects of ourselves that we are free to be many persons and to let go of those persons when they no longer serve us. This is already a CTS compatible animal but had no write up, so have no CTS code.