A raccoon canine appears out of its cage in a Chinese language dwell animal market in January 2004. Raccoon canine may have been an preliminary host for the virus that induced the COVID-19 pandemic.

Peter Parks/AFP through Getty Pictures

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Peter Parks/AFP through Getty Pictures

A raccoon canine appears out of its cage in a Chinese language dwell animal market in January 2004. Raccoon canine may have been an preliminary host for the virus that induced the COVID-19 pandemic.

Peter Parks/AFP through Getty Pictures

The World Well being Group is asking Chinese language officers to launch information that will present a hyperlink between raccoon canine and the coronavirus. That left many questioning — what’s a raccoon canine, anyway?

First, this is why we’re speaking about them. They have been being bought at a seafood and meat market in Wuhan, China, the place researchers discovered proof of the coronavirus in January 2020. Knowledge that was briefly posted on, after which faraway from, a world database appeared to indicate that genetic materials from raccoon canine confirmed up in the identical swabs because the virus that causes COVID, implying the animals may’ve been an preliminary host.

OK, so what are they?

In easy phrases, they seem to be a wild canine whose face appears like a raccoon’s. In barely extra scientific phrases, raccoon canine are a member of the canid household with fur markings and head shapes just like these of raccoons.

The omnivorous animal is native to East Asia, together with elements of China, Korea and Japan. Breeding from the fur farming business launched 1000’s of them all through the previous Soviet Union, and so they’re now a widespread invasive species all through northern and western Europe.

They like to dwell in forests and dense vegetation, in addition to areas bordering water.

They’re extra intently associated to foxes than to domesticated canine. Raccoon canine are a very completely different species from coonhounds, that are a domesticated breed of scenthound also called a coon canine.

Have they been linked to different ailments?

Sure. Raccoon canine and associated mammals bought for meals at a a dwell animal market in China in 2003 have been discovered to hold a coronavirus just like the virus present in people throughout a SARS coronavirus outbreak on the time. In 2004, Chinese language well being officers ordered the slaughter of 10,000 animals set to be bought at market, together with raccoon canine, after a person examined constructive for a novel pressure of the SARS virus and raised fears of one other outbreak.

One 2022 research took samples from about 2,000 animals of 18 completely different species from throughout settings in China — together with pure habitats, zoos and fur farms. It discovered that wild animals identified to be eaten by people, together with raccoon canine, carried 102 completely different viruses from 13 viral households.

Twenty-one of these pose a excessive threat to people, researchers mentioned, both as a result of they’d contaminated folks earlier than or had a historical past of leaping between species with ease.

Raccoon canine particularly carried 4 canine coronaviruses that have been genetically just like these present in people. In addition they carried enteric viruses, or viruses which can be transmitted when contaminated fecal matter enters the mouth or nostril.

Researchers mentioned this proof confirms the hazard of dwell markets just like the one in Wuhan.

“It is laborious to think about a more practical strategy to ignite and fire up an epidemic,” evolutionary biologist and co-author of the research Edward Holmes informed the journal Science. “We preserve permitting this stuff to flourish and it is solely a matter of time earlier than we get one other outbreak and maybe one other pandemic.”

Nonetheless, they’re so cute! Can I preserve one?

No.

Raccoon canine are wild animals, not domesticated pets. They dwell in giant house ranges, that means they want numerous house and are troublesome to handle in enclosures or different small areas, in line with the U.Ok.’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

In addition they have a robust odor as a result of they use scent to speak, making them a poor indoor home visitor.

And, if a raccoon canine escapes or is launched into the wild, it could threaten native wildlife within the elements of the world it is not native to.