An Arkansas study says city raccoons show signs of domestication

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A study led by Arkansas researchers recently discovered that city raccoons are showing physical traits consistent with signs of domestication.

The study, titled “ Tracking domestication signals across populations of North American raccoons (Procyon lotor) via citizen science-driven image repositories ,” was led by Dr. Raffaela Lesch, an assistant professor of biology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and features 16 students as co-authors.

The study, which analyzed nearly 20,000 images of raccoons from across the nation, found that raccoons living in cities have shorter snouts than those in rural areas. This physical change is notably associated with the domestication syndrome.

“I wanted to know if living in a city environment would kickstart domesti