Two young pygmy raccoons on the Mexican island of Cozumel have been caught making their own toys. The sisters pulled paper out of the trash at a beach club, soaked it in water, rolled it in sand and then batted the balls around. A team led by Nessie O'Neil, a graduate student at Miami University, described the behavior in the journal Wild.
Pygmy raccoons live only on Cozumel and are critically endangered. The team was there to study how tourism affects them, not to look for toys.
Made, not found
Plenty of animals play with objects. Here the raccoons changed the material first. The authors say it may be the first recorded case of raccoons deliberately shaping an object and then using it for something other than food.
According to Scientific American, O'Neil first saw one young raccoon take a receipt from the trash, dunk it in a water bowl again and again, roll it in sand and bat it around. Her sister and mother then joined in and tried to make balls of their own.
"It became a social activity rather than just a tactile experience for one individual," says researcher Michelle Szydlowski.
A habit that spread
Young raccoons at a similar site 30 kilometers away had the same paper and sand, the researchers report. They never made balls or played with them. That points to a habit the animals picked up from each other, not something every raccoon does.
Scientists call behavior like this, with objects and passed from animal to animal, material culture. It has been seen in chimpanzees, pigs and dolphins. The study may be the first case in the raccoon family, which also includes coatis and ringtails.
The price of trash
Living off tourist waste has a cost. One of the sisters later died of malnutrition and exposure to toxins from human waste, the researchers report.
Her sister kept making paper balls.
