The names of the animal raccoon in different languages turn out to be describing the same characteristic behavior of a raccoon.
That is washing. It tends to wash its food, whatever food, before eating it.
Raccoon’s scientific name is Procyon lotor, where “Procyon” is the genus for raccoons (meaning dog-like), and “lotor” is literally “washer”.
Following is an incomplete list of languages that describe raccoons as “washing bear”
- German: waschbar, wash::bear
- Italian: orsetto lavatore, bear cub::washer
- Hungarian: mosómedve, wash::bear
- Chinese: 浣熊, wash::bear
- Japanese: アライグマ, wash::bear
- French: raton laveur, rat::washer (well, rat…)
- Portuguese: ratão-lavadeiro, rat::washer
Even the English name, “raccoon”, is somewhat related to washing too. It is believed that the word is adopted from the Powhatan language in the Virginia Colony. The Powhatan word for raccoon is “ahrah-koon-em”, which means “[the] one who rubs, scrubs and scratches with its hands”.
So why on earth raccoons “wash” their food? It is due to its senses. Raccoons do not have great vision, in fact, they are thought to be color blind. On the contrary, Raccoons’ paws have excellent sense of touch. So they need to “rub” an object to gain more information on it, e.g. is it edible? Furthermore, the sensors on their paws becomes more sensitive when wet, so raccoons tend to “wash” their paws before sensing their food. So they looks like washing their food.
References:
- Wikipedia
- Google translation