Plants and Animals  This content is archived   Don’t let their
bad reputation alarm you, these masked furbearers do good as
well as mischief.  One of Missouri’s more infamous
troublemakers, the raccoon (Procyon lotor) does more than just
invade trash cans and make a ruckus.  The raccoon’s coloring is
one of the natural world’s great icons, with its legendary
“robber’s mask” and ringed tail. In both males and females, the
primary body color ranges from a grayish-yellow to a dark brown.
Females average between 6 and 20 pounds, males weigh from 8 to
40 pounds.  An omnivorous, opportunistic feeder, raccoons are
adept at foraging for plant matter, such as Osage orange fruit,
wild blackberries, acorns, grapes and persimmons, or hunting
prey. What raccoons eat is largely dependent on what they can
find. Snakes, turtles and their eggs, crayfish, lizards, frogs,
rabbits, muskrat, snails, slugs and earthworms are all on the
menu. As a nocturnal animal, the bulk of its hunting and
gathering is done at night.  In Missour