Japanese raccoon dog


The Japanese raccoon dog, also known as the tanuki, is a subspecies of the Asian raccoon dog.
Researchers have suggested that they be considered a separate species, N. viverrinus, or that raccoon dogs of Japan could be further divisible into separate subspecies as N. p. procyonoides and N. p. albus, but both views are controversial.
As the tanuki, the animal has been significant in Japanese folklore since ancient times. The legendary tanuki is reputed to be mischievous and jolly, a master of disguise and shapeshifting, but somewhat gullible and absent-minded. It is also a common theme in Japanese art, especially statuary.
Tanuki is often mistakenly translated into English as "badger" or "raccoon", two unrelated types of animals with superficially similar appearances. Traditionally, different areas of Japan had different names for raccoon dogs as animals, which would be used to denote different animals in other parts of the country, including badgers and wild cats; however, the official word in the standard Tokyo dialect is now tanuki, a term that also carries the folkloric significance.
The North American raccoon is translated as in Japanese, while badger is translated as or as.

Behavior

The Japanese raccoon dog is mainly nocturnal, but they are known to be active during daylight. They vocalize by growling or with groans that have pitches resembling those of domesticated cats. Like cats, the Japanese raccoon dog arches its back when it is trying to intimidate other animals; however,
they assume a defensive posture similar to that of other canids, lowering their bodies and showing their bellies to submit.
Usually social groups are limited to a breeding pair, but individual Japanese raccoon dogs may stay in a group of non-paired individuals until they find a mate.
The species is predominantly monogamous. The breeding period for the species is synchronized between females and males and lasts between February and April. A litter is born after a gestation period of 9 weeks. The parents look after their pups at a den for around a month, and then for another month after the pups leave the den.
Japanese raccoon dogs live for 7–8 years in the wild, and have reached the age of 13 in captivity.

Taxonomy

The Japanese raccoon dog is sometimes classified as its own distinct species due to unique chromosomal, behavioral, and morphological characteristics absent in mainland raccoon dogs. The Japanese raccoon dog has a relatively smaller stomach and shorter fur of lesser insulation value than mainland raccoon dogs.
Genetic analysis has confirmed unique sequences of mtDNA, classifying the Japanese raccoon dog as a distinct isolation species, based on evidence of eight Robertsonian translocations. The International Union for Conservation of Nature Canid Group's Canid Biology and Conservation Conference in September 2001 rejected the classification of the Japanese raccoon dog as a separate species, but its status is still disputed, based on its elastic genome. The karyotype of Japanese raccoon dogs is different from that of the mainland raccoon dogs. Though it is unknown whether mainland raccoon dogs and Japanese raccoon dogs can produce fertile offspring, it is assumed that the chromosomal differences between them would have deleterious effects on the fertility of the potential offspring and this would be indicative of speciation. Aggregators on mammal taxonomy are inconsistent: Like the IUCN, Mammal Species of the World considers the Japanese raccoon dog to be a subspecies whereas the American Association of Mammologists include N. viverrinus as a valid species in their Mammal Diversity Database.
The raccoon dogs from Hokkaido are sometimes recognized as a different subspecies from the mainland tanuki as Nyctereutes procyonoides albus . This taxon is synonymized with N. p. viverrinus in Mammal Species of the World, but comparative morphometric analysis supports recognizing the Hokkaido population as a distinct subspecific unit.

Conservation and exhibition

The IUCN places the raccoon dog at "least concern" status due to the animal's wide distribution in Japan and abundant population, including as an introduced species throughout northeastern Europe. In many European countries, it is legal to hunt raccoon dogs, as they are considered a harmful and invasive species. In Japan the species is hunted mainly to prevent them from damaging crops; however, their fur is desired for use in calligraphy brushes and was exported chiefly to the United States before the outbreak of World War II. The animal is a common victim of vehicle accidents, with conservative estimates of up to 370,000 Japanese raccoon dogs being killed by vehicles each year in Japan.
This species is rarely exhibited in zoological parks. For example, only two zoos accredited by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association - Zoo Atlanta in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Red River Zoo in Fargo, North Dakota - currently exhibit this species in the United States. The Hangzhou Zoo in China and the River Safari in Singapore also have Japanese raccoon dogs. In the UK, Chew Valley Animal Park near Bristol in the south west of England has a breeding pair.

Name

While tanuki are prominent in Japanese folklore and proverbs, they were not always clearly distinguished from other animals with a similar appearance. In local dialects, tanuki and mujina can refer to raccoon dogs or badgers. An animal known as tanuki in one region may be known as mujina in another region. In the modern Tokyo standard dialect, tanuki refers to raccoon dogs and anaguma refers to badgers.

In folklore and tradition

The tanuki has a long history in Japanese legend and folklore. Bake-danuki are a kind of tanuki yōkai found in the classics and in the folklore and legends of various places in Japan.
Although the tanuki is a real, extant animal, the bake-danuki that appears in literature has always been depicted as a strange, even supernatural animal. The earliest appearance of the bake-danuki in literature, in the chapter about Empress Suiko in the Nihon Shoki written during the Nara period, there are such passages as "in two months of spring, there are tanuki in the country of Mutsu, they turn into humans and sing songs ". Bake-danuki subsequently appear in such classics as the Nihon Ryōiki and the Uji Shūi Monogatari. In some regions of Japan, bake-danuki are reputed to have abilities similar to those attributed to kitsune : they can shapeshift into other things or people, and can possess human beings.
Many legends of tanuki exist in the Sado Islands of Niigata Prefecture and in Shikoku, and among them, like the Danzaburou-danuki of Sado, the Kinchō-tanuki and Rokuemon-tanuki of Awa Province, and the Yashima no Hage-tanuki of Kagawa Prefecture, the tanuki that possessed special abilities were given names, and even became the subject of rituals. Apart from these places, tanuki are treated with special regard in a few cases.

In popular culture

Tanuki are a recurring theme in Japanese popular culture. The first exposure of non-Japanese to tanuki usually comes through exported Japanese media. However, they are often described as "raccoons" in translation or assumed as such if no species is given.
Notable appearances of tanuki in popular culture include:
In Japanese slang, tanuki gao can refer to a face that looks like that of the animal, or a person's facial expression of feigned ignorance. By contrast, kitsune gao refers to people with narrow faces, close-set eyes, thin eyebrows, and high cheekbones.
A dish called ceased to contain actual tanuki meat, but some rural stews do use tanuki.
Of Japanese noodles, the words "tanuki" and "kitsune" designate two varieties of the udon or soba dishes. Neither contain any of those meats. Tanuki udon/soba contains flakes of fried tempura batter, while kitsune udon/soba contains fried tofu.