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When a curious raccoon In December 2025, broke into a liquor store in Ashland, Virginia, sampled inventory and collapsed on the bathroom floorthe story went viral within minutes. The local animal shelter’s Facebook post was picked up by national and international media and soon inspired raccoon-themed cocktails, “abandoned panda” merchandise and even a guest appearance on “Saturday Night Live.”
For me, this story hit home. The store that hosted this drunken robber was just a few blocks from the small behavioral neuroscience laboratory where I began studying raccoon brains about 15 years ago. Despite the so-called drunken raccoon’s questionable decisions after breaking into a liquor store, the raccoon is known for its impressive intelligence, curiosity, and problem-solving abilities.
Although the raccoon is one of the most interesting mammals to live alongside humans, it has avoided the scientific spotlight. Why aren’t more neuroscientists and psychologists studying raccoons? What aspects of the mammalian brain are researchers missing by focusing on rodents?
Why raccoons aren’t a lab staple
In the United States, it is estimated that more than 100 million rodents, including mice and rats, are used in laboratories each year. Rodents are ideal for research because they breed easily and adapt well to confinement. Scientists have customized a wide range of research tools to study them. Long before rats dominated psychology laboratories, raccoons were actually prime candidates as animal models of problem solving and intelligence.
It all ended when the scientists realized they had achieved a cognitive match. In one study, researchers reported that all raccoon participants escaped through the laboratory ventilation system.
Not surprisingly, scientists quickly turned to rodents. Practicality—rather than scientific applicability—ultimately made rats the kings of the laboratory. I’ve been studying rats for decades, and I can confirm that not one has ever disappeared from the ceiling.
Neither a pet nor a pest
Humans have an ambivalent relationship with raccoons. They look too wild to be tamed, too cute to be considered purely pests, and too common to be considered exotic wildlife. Even U.S. President Calvin Coolidge famously received a raccoon for his dinner table from a supporter in Mississippi, eventually keeping it as a beloved White House pet.
Today, the character’s confusion continues when raccoons enter our living spaces and we can see their human-like behavior. One report describes raccoons interacting with playground equipment at a child care center on Canada’s west coast in ways similar to human children, even breaking into classrooms as if they were observing morning classes.
Inspired by the principles of Montessori education, a few years ago I visited a raccoon rehabilitation center called Bandit Ranch Rehab in Saskatoon, Canada. After introducing tights, puzzles, and blocks to the little raccoons, I watched in awe as they interacted with these objects with the focused enthusiasm of a preschooler performing a task.
This interspecific confusion appears to be mutual. Recent evidence suggests that urban raccoons are becoming increasingly tolerant of humans, especially when it suits them. But when curiosity or opportunity arises, they are quick to move on.
raccoon imagination
The drunken Ashland raccoon attracted global attention because it fit the description of the species: mischievous, opportunistic, intelligent, and somewhat human-like. But their complex brains and mental abilities, which are closer to primates than other mammals, are even more fascinating.
Early behavioral studies showed that raccoons can learn a task, walk away, and then come back to solve it accurately—as if they had mentally rehearsed the solution. In contrast, other species, including dogs and rats, require sustained attention. Scientists speculate that raccoons have mental imagination abilities similar to humans.
When a rogue raccoon climbed a 25-story skyscraper in Minneapolis a few years ago, I couldn’t help but wonder what the animal was expecting at the top. Do raccoons form internal representations of future outcomes? If so, how much role and foresight did they play in the decision-making?
About the author
Kelly Lambert is professor of behavioral neuroscience at the University of Richmond. This article was originally published on dialogue and republished under a Creative Commons license. read Original article.
To answer these questions, I teamed up with wildlife biologists, veterinarians, and neuroscientists across the country to study what may be one of the most undervalued and studied brains in the animal kingdom.
What’s going on inside a raccoon’s brain?
My lab at the University of Richmond, working with neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel, discovered that raccoon brains contain an astonishing number of neurons, comparable to those of primates. If scaled up, a raccoon brain would have about the same number of neurons as a human brain.
We also found that raccoons possess special, fast-conducting brain cells called von Economo neurons, which are also found in humans, other great apes, and some other cerebral mammals. In apes, these neurons appear in the insula (a part of the brain important for processing internal body states) and the anterior cingulate gyrus (which plays a key role in emotion regulation). In raccoons, these neurons are present only in the insula and not in the anterior cingulate gyrus.
This neural arrangement may help explain the species’ surprising combination of clever problem-solving and rapid decision-making during exploration—often leading to dangerous behavior that can have unfortunate consequences. These findings raise the possibility that raccoon neuroscience could provide useful insights into the neural basis of impulse control and divided attention.
Working with ecologist Sarah Benson-Abram’s research group, we also found that raccoons with more complex cognitive abilities had more nerve cells in the hippocampus, reinforcing the idea that their learning and memory abilities map to similar brain systems as humans. London taxi drivers often use their knowledge of London’s 25,000 streets, and their hippocampus is larger.
In addition to their impressive brains, raccoons’ dexterous hands play a key role in their cognitive and creative adventures. In fact, researchers found that raccoon front paws map to the cerebral cortex (the outer layer of the brain) in a similar way to human hands. Both take up a lot of space in the brain. As journalist Carl Zimmer wrote, “The hand is where the mind and the world meet.”
What raccoons can tell us about the human brain
As I argue in my upcoming book, Wild Brains, understanding raccoons’ intelligence requires observing them in their chosen environment, rather than confining them to the small, simple spaces that fit rats and mice. So-called “living laboratories” that can monitor wild animals without restricting their behavior may be scientists’ best chance of unlocking the secrets of the species’ remarkable minds.
In my graduate training, I was taught to avoid anthropomorphizing animal research subjects—to resist the temptation to project human thoughts and emotions onto nonhuman minds because the human brain may contribute to uniquely human cognitive and emotional experiences. But primatologist Frans de Waal later proposed the useful counterpoint of “human denial”: the mistaken belief that animals cannot share emotions or cognitive abilities with humans simply because they are not human.
The drunken Ashland raccoon attracted global attention not only because the story was funny, but also because it felt familiar. People see themselves reflected in these curious, impulsive, problem-solving animals navigating a very human environment. A willingness to step away from anthropology—while maintaining a rigorous scientific foundation—could open new avenues for understanding raccoon intelligence and, ultimately, the incredibly complex human brain.