No, a study did not prove that raccoons are domesticating themselves.

Sorry to be a buzzkill.

A lot of people have been reaching out to us about a widely reported study that, according to the headlines, proves that raccoons are domesticating themselves. Half-serious social media posts are hailing this as the greatest news ever for people who fantasize about having a pet raccoon.

The only thing that the study demonstrated is that raccoons in rural areas have slightly longer snouts than raccoons in urban areas. Seriously. That’s all that the study found. It did not find that raccoons are orchestrating a plan to become our pets or that they would be happier in your living room than in the forest.

The findings of the study are truly interesting, because they confirm that, like foxes and mice, raccoons’ skull shapes are slightly different based on their proximity to humans. Shorter snouts are one very, very small component of “domestication syndrome,” which is the controversial notion that domestication, by its very nature, involves animals developing more infant-like physical and behavioral traits.

The recent raccoon study gives some support for the hypothesis that mammals with baby-like faces and brains may fare better in urban settings than rural ones. It means that raccoons with these traits may be less afraid of scavenging garbage, and maybe slightly less likely to get exterminated than raccoons with pointier snouts.

It does NOT mean that raccoons are now domesticated animals, or that it is ever acceptable to try to tame or own them. Even the cutest raccoons with baby faces are still raccoons, and freedom is their birthright.