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Why do raccoons wash their food in water?

Imagine: you are in the forest, near a stream. On the bank sits a furry beast with a black "mask" over its eyes. It holds a piece of apple in its paws and dips it into the water. It rinses, rubs, turns it over - like a knitter in a laundry. It is a raccoon. Everyone thinks that it washes food. Hence its Latin name - "lotor", which means "laundress". But scientists have discovered an amazing secret: the raccoon does not do this for cleanliness at all!

The fact is that a raccoon has the most sensitive paws of all mammals on Earth. No animal in the world «sees» with its paws as well as it does. It has 4-5 times more nerve endings on its fingertips than you and I do. Imagine that your fingers can feel the slightest scratch, texture, shape — like eyes!

And when raccoon paws are in the water — a miracle! The skin on them becomes even more sensitive. It's like when you're in a pool: for some reason you feel everything differently. Scientists have studied: in wet paws, a raccoon "sees" so well that with its eyes closed it can distinguish a nut from a pebble, a fish from a leaf, a worm from a stick!

So when a raccoon "washes" food, it's actually EXAMINES it with its paws. It turns it, feels it, checks: is it spoiled? is it edible? is it tasty? This is its way of "looking" at the world - with its fingertips.

By the way, raccoons are incredibly smart. They remember how to open locks and doors. One raccoon learned to open 11 out of 13 complex locks — and remembered it after 3 years! In cities, they open garbage cans like real burglars. They even have a nickname — "little bear cubs in masks.".

So the next time you see a raccoon near the water, don't think it's just a clean-up job. Know that it's "looking" with its paws right now — and learning about the world in a way we never can.