A Thread on Everyone's New Favourite Animal: The Raccoon Dog
The natural range of the common raccoon dog is in East Asia, but it has been widely introduced in Europe, where it is locally abundant. Here's a thread on everyone's new favourite animal.
Prof Francois Balloux
Director @UGI_at_UCL. Interest in Infectious disease epidemiology, pathogen genomics and global health Mastodon account: @FBalloux@genomic.social
-
A thread on everyone’s new favourite animal, the raccoon dog. There are two species, the common raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides) and the Japanese raccoon dog (Nyctereutes viverrinus), also known as the tanuki. Raccoon dogs are related to foxes (Vulpini).
— Prof Francois Balloux (@BallouxFrancois) March 21, 2023
1/ pic.twitter.com/JxsnSkuJZc -
The natural range of the common raccoon dog is in East Asia, but it has been widely introduced in Europe, where it is locally abundant. It is farmed primarily for fur, generally in awful conditions, in China, but also in smaller numbers in Finland and Poland
— Prof Francois Balloux (@BallouxFrancois) March 21, 2023
2/ pic.twitter.com/6RkKR0FmaO -
Annual production of raccoon dogs in fur farms has gone down from ~15M individuals/year pre-pandemic, but remains substantial, with ~9M raccoon dogs bred and killed in 2021.
— Prof Francois Balloux (@BallouxFrancois) March 21, 2023
3/https://t.co/MC0iW79MlW -
The common raccoon dog was considered as a plausible ‘intermediate host’ for a zoonotic host jump of SARS-CoV-2 from bats into humans from early on in the Covid-19 pandemic.https://t.co/H8eciXcM5P
— Prof Francois Balloux (@BallouxFrancois) March 21, 2023
4/ pic.twitter.com/uuZCKCcPcI -
The common raccoon dog is susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 (and to SARS-CoV-1). It can be infected experimentally with SARS-CoV-2, and can further transmit the virus to other individuals.
— Prof Francois Balloux (@BallouxFrancois) March 21, 2023
5/https://t.co/T8mEqBT5sv -
Though, so far, there's been no single case reported of a naturally infected raccoon dog (wild or captive). Thus, similarly to other canids, it might not be a particularly effective host for SARS-CoV-2.
— Prof Francois Balloux (@BallouxFrancois) March 21, 2023
6/
Image credit: Cedric Tan pic.twitter.com/LUNrTaITJP