Category
🐳
AnimalsTranscript
00:00 Welcome to the 38th episode of Animal Battle between the magical Raccoon Dog and the elusive
00:05 Bush Dog.
00:06 In the first part we will focus on the Raccoon Dog, but you will want to watch the second
00:10 part about the Bush Dog to decide which of these two amazing canids deserves your vote.
00:16 After you vote in the comments by writing #Raccoon or #Bush, I'll announce the winner
00:19 of this Animal Battle in part 3.
00:22 But let's go directly to the star of this episode, the Raccoon Dog.
00:25 I know what you might be thinking.
00:27 What in the world is a Raccoon Dog?
00:29 Glad you asked.
00:30 A Raccoon Dog is actually not a raccoon, but it's a canid, just like wolves and dogs, although
00:36 it is closer to foxes of them all.
00:38 To make matters more complicated, there are actually two different species of Raccoon
00:42 Dogs, the Common Raccoon Dog, native to Eastern Asia and now it seems that to Europe, and
00:48 the Japanese Raccoon Dog, also known as Tanuki by the locals.
00:51 But aside from small differences, these two species are very similar, so I can talk about
00:56 Raccoon Dogs in general in this video.
00:58 An interesting feature of Raccoon Dogs is those short legs, meant to bring them closer
01:02 to the ground, where they can track food with their incredible sense of smell.
01:06 But don't let those short legs fool you, because apparently they are incredibly agile,
01:11 reaching top speeds of up to 40 km/h, which is much faster than the top speed of Wurttogs.
01:17 They are also good swimmers and even great tree climbers, bringing their agility stats
01:22 pretty high.
01:23 Raccoon Dogs can travel long distances on the ground in search of their favorite food.
01:27 What is their favorite food exactly?
01:29 Well, everything.
01:31 And I really mean everything, because Raccoon Dogs are omnivorous, and they have the most
01:35 varied diet of all canids.
01:38 From birds or their eggs, insects, fish, turtles, roots, fruits, carrion, nuts and berries,
01:46 to feces, poisonous frogs and your soul.
01:49 Ok, maybe they won't devour your soul, but they do indeed eat poisonous frogs.
01:54 So they are born immune to poison?
01:56 Not really.
01:57 They produce a lot of saliva to dilute the poison, and they just build immunity to poison
02:02 over time.
02:03 That is badass.
02:05 But why do they need to eat so much?
02:07 Raccoon Dogs eat as much as they can to get ready to hibernate during winter, being the
02:11 only canid species to do so.
02:13 While the 71 cm long Doggo will only weigh about 3 kg in March, which is twice smaller
02:19 than the Bushdog, it will actually more than double its weight by September, reaching 7
02:24 kg.
02:25 The chunkiest individuals can weigh up to 10 kg.
02:29 Not only do they get chunky in the winter, but they also get fluffy, their thick and
02:33 dense fur keeping them warm even in temperatures of -25°C, otherwise known as very cold for
02:39 Americans.
02:40 I'm very interested, what are they hiding under their feet like masks?
02:44 Apparently, nothing, since their mask is not there to conceal their identity when browsing
02:49 indecent material on the web, but the black markings are great at reducing glare so that
02:53 you wouldn't be blinded by a bright light.
02:56 It does have a side effect of making them look very much like a raccoon, but that is
03:00 just an example of convergent evolution, which is when two completely unrelated animal species
03:05 evolve the same useful traits.
03:07 So just like the raccoon, the raccoon dog is nocturnal to avoid predators.
03:10 There are many carnivores around waiting to hunt for these small Doggos that have relatively
03:15 weak canines, so wouldn't be able to protect themselves too well.
03:19 Their biggest predators by far are wolves, but can also be killed by foxes, lynxes and
03:24 birds of prey like golden eagles, goshawks and eagle owls.
03:28 But perhaps an unexpected serial killer of raccoon dogs are cars.
03:32 In Japan, about 370,000 Tanukis are run over by cars each year, which is kinda sad because
03:39 they are actually venerated by the locals.
03:42 Raccoon dogs are the subject of many Japanese folktales, said to have magical abilities
03:46 like shapeshifting, flying, possessing people and making your crush love you.
03:51 Ok, maybe not that last part, no magical creature is capable of such miracles, but Tanukis are
03:56 believed to bring good luck and are now very prevalent even in modern media.
04:00 Now let's look at how the common raccoon dog is treated in the rest of Asia and Europe.
04:04 Oh, it seems like they are hunted for their fur, and the Soviets brought some raccoon
04:09 dogs to Europe to breed them for more coats.
04:12 Many raccoon dogs escaped into the wild though and started breeding like crazy, invading
04:16 almost the entire Europe and purging many native species to extinction.
04:21 Now they are a highly successful species despite people hunting them, being listed as a least
04:26 concern species by the IUCN Red List.
04:29 While at a glance the raccoon dogs seem to be quite unremarkable with average stats across
04:33 the board, it seems like the small but opportunistic omnivores are thriving as a species, ready
04:39 to adapt to any new environment they are thrown into.
04:42 But how well do they fare against the elusive bush dogs of South America?
04:46 You'll have to watch part 2 once it's available and can then vote for a winner of this battle
04:50 writing #bush or #raccoon in the comments.
04:53 Until next time, don't forget to respect animals!