Jimothy, a raccoon who may have short-spine syndrome, has gone viral overnight after being spotted around Seattle.
KIRO host John Curley tried to describe the uniquely shaped animal, who has quickly become a local celebrity, on “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio.
“Just imagine a raccoon for a moment,” Curley said. “Normal raccoon in your mind. There’s a raccoon. He has the black around his eyes. You know why that is? That’s to cut down on glare, so he can see better. Like a football player has the black eye shade on there. So, a normal raccoon. Now, just imagine if you took the raccoon and you put one hand on his like snout, and you put the other hand on his backside there, and you had superhuman strength, and you were able to kind of crush him like a can, without killing him.
“No, then you kill him and throw him in the garbage. No, you just squish him a little bit, and you crush him up,” he continued. “Imagine if he’s made out of clay. Then all of a sudden, like, OK, you know he’s got this kind of bump on his back. Well, that’s what this thing looks like. Took me a long way to get to it.”
Jimothy seen on porches, wandering through Ballard
In one video, Jimothy is seen dipping his hands into a bowl on a porch. Curley debunked the common myth that raccoons wash their food, explaining that water actually stimulates nerve endings in their fingers, helping them feel what they’re eating better.
“The raccoon will dip the food, if they find food, in water all the time, and people like, ‘Oh, they’re always washing their food. They got hygiene on their mind.’ No, it helps to stimulate the end of their fingers so that the nerve endings are more sensitive,” he said. “So they do that, and even when they can’t find water, they’ll turn it like they’re spinning it to put it in water. It’s to create more sensitivity, so they have a better idea of what they’re eating.”
Ballard residents have reported seeing Jimothy wandering across backyard decks, drinking from a dog’s water bowl, and sitting in neighborhood trees.
Watch the full discussion in the video above.
Listen to John Curley weekday afternoons from 3 – 7 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.
