Hippo's Wild World of Animals - Random Animal Facts

Hippo I like what I see on that list. Snow leopards, yay! 

This week’s animal is the oddly shaped raccoon dog. In future news, turns out I actually have enough animals to get me through season three so season four will probably be open for requests from April onwards. I'll be taking a few weeks out of fact writing once we reach snow leopards so don't go elsewhere during the hiatus.

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Raccoon dogs, alternately known as manguts and tanuki, are a wild dog species native to Asia with most native to Japan and parts of China and Russia. There are also a separate group which live in Central and Eastern Europe after being introduced there though are treated as invasive there.


Though the raccoon dog looks a lot like a raccoon to the point there's a 50/50 chance a picture of one will be of the other, it has no genetic similarities much like the giant panda’s relation to the red panda. They’re omnivores so will eat frogs, voles, fruit and seeds and will climb trees to feed.


Interestingly, though dogs they do not bark but generally whine, mewl, growl but all in a pitch similar to that of your average housecat.


Tanuki are around the size of a mid sized dog with lengths of 45~70cm and varying weights being around 3kg in the summer and 7kg in the winter, they’ll usually live for anywhere between 7-10 years. Good pet? Yes, they're still dogs so if you can find one, you take it.


The reason for their population in Europe is due to their fur, they are commonly hunted for their winter coats which are dense, fluffy and offer heat insulation down to -20ºC outside. They were introduced to areas within the Soviet Union between 1928 and 1958 in order to improve their fur quality but they’re good breeders and their numbers increased quickly. They adapted so well that now that they spread across into central Europe where they're now considered an invasive species with some countries making killing them legal.


Possibly due to their commonality, they’re not often kept in captivity. Within Japan, they have a specific legacy, mostly that of being shapeshifters and tricksters in folklore and remain very common within the culture.

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So, some pictures? Only pictures, gifs just aren't out there for these arfaroos so rest easy Dellarigg .

Well, you say that but do you think if they called them raccoon dogs they'd make more sense or that people would remember that distinction? No, even calling them tanuki is trouble. That whole idea of enlarged scrotums would push people far far away from it if you actually just called them that, someone was going to have their nephew watch that and he's only 9!

This is coming from someone who'd never consider letting a kid watch Pom Poko sure but still... and yes, they'd watch the dubbed version because you don't read a film!

Oh, I just prefer dubs because the dialogue as subtitled is dry. I'm opposed to calling a raccoon dog a raccoon too it too so at least we have that.

That and if you called them for what they are it'd be the only Studio Ghibli film with the dubious honour of getting an R rating.

Zoanis.  Really.

Meh, perversion is in the eye of the beholder. I don't think 19th century hentai is pervy. I upvoted because it's imaginative and amusing. 

congrats, hippo - you now have a spinoff: moimoi's Serene World of Plants

Well done! If it's all plants with vague hints towards looking like genitalia like you're suggesting, you'll have the most success.

I didn't but thanks.

It really is remarkable how similar they look to some dogs and wolves. So many members of Canidae look so similar to each other.

People have successfully bred a domesticated fox? Vulpes Vulpes? Wow, I wonder how long that took.

In Soviet Russia domesticated foxes loves YOU

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Domesticated_Red_Fox

There are hyper-carnivorous fox fossils known from the Tibetan plateau from between 5 and 3.6 million years ago. It is thought that these guys adapted to the cold conditions there by taking on a more energy rich carnivorous lifestyle over the omnivorous habits of most foxes. These then spread out, possibly during glacial periods, to become the modern Arctic fox.

They're part of a whole cluster of cold-adapted critters that seem to have had a cradle of evolution on the Tibetan plateau, including wooly rhinoceros, snow leopards, a type of hyena with long legs for running down prey, and hunting dogs. From these has come an Out-of-Tibet theory for the evolution of these groups, much as Africa seems to have been a cradle for the evolution of hominids.

The hunting dogs seem to be ancestral to the modern dholes of southern Asia, and the painted hunting dogs of Africa - meaning these cold-adapted hyper-carnivores later adapted to warm climates as well.

The very oldest fox fossils (Vulpes)are from the late Miocene (about 7 mya) in Chad. These are also the first canid* fossils known from the Old World. Considering that previous to this the cradle of canid evolution appears to have been the American Southwest, with fossils canids going back some 35 million years, it's assumed that the foxes probably didn't spontaneously generate in Africa, but no one's sure exactly how or when they got there.


Edit:  By "canid" here, I am refering to the Tribe Canini, which is the foxes, coyotes, and wolves.  It does not include critters like the raccoon dog which have a longer Old World history.

Just saw this interesting article on ravens ability to know when they are being spied on.



and now, back to foxes...

Jumpy foxes

It's the fox of wisdom.  I would like to ask it its wisdom.