RACCOONS OF NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA 31 



PROCYON LOTOR GROUP 



Di.'ifribufion. — Transcontinental (except in parts of the Rocky 

 Mountain region) from southern Canada to Panama, and islands as 

 far distant as the Tres Marias off the west coast of Mexico and the 

 Bahamas and Lesser Antilles, West Indies. Altitudinal range is from 

 sea level up along streams to about 5,000 feet in parts of the Rocky 

 Mountain region (a few animals reaching as high as 8,500 feet eleva- 

 tion), and to more than 9,000 feet in the mountains near Ajusco south 

 of the Valley of Mexico. It occupies the Tropical, Austral, Transition, 

 and lower part of Canadian Zones. 



Characters. — Contrasted with Procyon cancrworus and related forms: 

 Pelage of nape inclined l)ackward; pelage consisting of two distinct 

 kinds of hairs — soft, dense, velvety underfur, and longer, stiffer, 

 projecting overlying hairs; throat and postauricular areas blackish; 

 cusps of larger molariform teeth relatively high and trenchant, with 

 distinct connecting ridges. 



Remarks. — The Procyon lotor group includes P. lotor and subspecies 

 of the mainland from Canada to Panama and closely adjacent islands. 

 To the group may also conveniently be referred several more distant 

 insular forms regarded as specifically distinct, but closely allied, as 

 shown by similarity in important characters. These inhabit the Tres 

 Marias Islands off the west coast of Mexico, Cozumel Island off Yuca- 

 tan, and several rather widely se])arated islands of the West Indies. 

 How the particular West Indian islands now inhabited were reached 

 by raccoons and why these animals do not occur on many other 

 islands of the archipelago where conditions seem similarly suitable are 

 interesting subjects for speculation. Sloane (1725, p. 329) referred to 

 the occurrence of the animal in Jamaica, as follows: "The Raccoons 

 are commonly here in the Mountains, and live in hollow fiddlewood 

 Trees, from whence they make paths to go to seek Sugar Canes, which 

 is their chief, if only Sustenance." As there appear to be no later 

 records and as Sloane referred vaguely to various authors who described 

 raccoons elsewhere, he probably confused Jamaica with some other 

 island. 



The members of the group as a whole differ among themselves in 

 tone of coloration, but the pattern of color markings is essentially the 

 same, and all forms are much alike in general external appearance. 

 They require close comparison as a group only with the crab-eating 

 raccoon, Procyon [Euprocyon) cancrivorus, the range of a northern 

 representative of the latter being overlapped in Panama. The char- 

 acters that have been mentioned, however, readily separate the two 

 groups. 



