9 6 Troy A. Ladine 



linearly constant regardless of year, season, and sex class, with slight differences 

 among age classes. The lower ratio for age II raccoons might indicate that these 

 individuals are not able to accumulate the fat reserves of older animals resulting 

 from potential lower dominance status. The potential for dominance hierarchies 

 in raccoons has been shown experimentally (Barash 1974). 



Table 2. Correlation of mass and girth of 13 individual raccoons (Procyon lotor). 

 See text for explanation of age class. 



Raccoon 



2760M 

 4022M 

 4145M 

 5208M 

 4080M 

 4083M 

 4090M 

 4100M 

 4117M 

 4160M 

 4186M 

 4188M 

 4190M 



a Adjusted R 2 was used due to the small sample sizes for each individual. 



Sanderson (1950) noted that the strain of pregnancy and lactation have 

 a marked effect on the mass of female raccoons. Thus, adult females would be 

 expected to have lower fat reserves than adult males due to the stress of rearing 

 young. Furthermore, the observed difference between the males and females 

 might be due to potential physiological differences between the sexes, a poten- 

 tial social dominance of the males (see Barash 1974), or a combination of the 

 two. 



The seasonal variation observed in individuals could be due to season- 

 al mass changes. Raccoons are known to exhibit seasonal fluctuations in mass 

 (Stuewer 1943, Mech et al. 1968, Moore and Kennedy 1985). As indicated pre- 

 viously, the mass to girth ratio in raccoons is a linearly constant relationship. 

 Consequently, one would expect to see girth fluctuate with mass. 



Class 



Sex 



Number of 

 Captures 



Adjusted R 2 



P 



V 



M 



5 



-0.1134 



0.4923 



III 



M 



8 



0.7185 



0.0049 



II 



M 



10 



0.9030 



0.0001 



II 



M 



5 



-0.2968 



0.7901 



II 



F 



5 



0.1993 



0.3172 



III 



F 



8 



0.3829 



0.0601 



II 



F 



6 



0.8742 



0.0127 



II 



F 



10 



-0.0667 



0.5269 



IV 



F 



6 



-0.0259 



0.4130 



IV 



F 



9 



0.5973 



0.0089 



II 



F 



7 



0.2152 



0.1648 



II 



F 



9 



0.2329 



0.1065 



II 



F 



6 



-0.0819 



0.4746 



