I know the title is poorly worded but I can’t really think of how exactly to word the question.
I was watching a cat try to find a place to sit that wasn’t covered in snow and it made me think about how humans wipe off snow covered seats or just dirty seats in general.
Is that a uniquely human thing or are there other animals that exhibit similar behaviors?
Racoons clean their food.
Literal translation of the Norwegian word for raccoon is Wasing-Bear
The German word for raccoon is Waschbär
Same in Japanese. araiguma translates as washing bear.
On the contrary, in French it is raton-laveur, which translates to washing baby rat.
French is clearly more correct than German here. They are rats not bears
Since they belong to the super family musteloidea, Wash Weasel seems more accurate. Definitely still closer to bears than rodents though.
It makes sense. How else could you be a chef if you didn’t have opposable thumbs
Tvättbjörn
They don’t clean it, at least that’s not their intention. They don’t have saliva, so they’re really just trying to get it wet.
It’s more like those hot dog eating contests where they dunk the whole thing in water.
Is that why that video of the raccoon losing cotton candy in a stream exists?
Thanks. I’m sad again.
He was given more cotton candy and eventually figured out that it can’t go in water and ate some dry.
Racoon sure got that share https://piped.video/watch?v=eesxH2-8Jlo
“Wipe” is a bit of a stretch and a bit specific when it comes to animal behavior, but many animals do clean their food or clean their living quarters in a variety of ways.
In addition to the other examples already given, I’ll toss Eusocial Insects into the ring. This includes groups like bees and ants that live collectively in colonies. For example, honeybees will clean their colony’s comb to keep it free of debris. Leaf cutter ants depend on a specific type of fungus that they cultivate for food, and they spend a lot of effort keeping their farmed good nice and sanitary.
Ngl my brain excludes arthropods from the animal kingdom so I almost never think about them when asking these questions 😂
My cat wipes the condensation off windows so she can look out.
Cats will 100% “wipe off” a place to sleep or shit or be adorable little assholes. If something is in their way, they will move it out of the way. Same with brushing dirt/dust/litter out of the way
Snow is a special case because it is cold and wet. Moving the snow out of the way will still leave them with a cold and wet place to sleep.
I’ve seen them play with small objects or push things off counters but never seen them fully clean an area of small particles.
Maybe I just never really paid attention ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
To add the opposite of this, cats do cover up their feces in the wild very well, and housecats will in a litterbox too instinctually. To hide their scent so they don’t get eaten.
It’s all about needs. Humans became the top of the food chain and stopped needing as much, so we started doing other things. Also in the wild if there’s wind then there won’t be as much on things, dust really only starts to gather once walls are built (or in caves I suppose.)
I mean, most humans aren’t going to fully clean off all the small particles. Brush enough so that they aren’t in the way/aren’t immediately visible and move on with life.
Dogs get ready for bed by clearing their sleeping area or arranging to their liking.
Pigs decorate their bed with flowers.
maybe Birds of Paradise
They carefully weed, groom, and remove any debris from their courtship grounds to ensure a spotless area for their performances. This ensures that the females are not distracted by dirt and debris, allowing the males to show off their dazzling colors and elaborate dances without interruption.
This guy BBC Earths
That’s actually pretty interesting. I’ve heard of birds setting up areas for courtship but never really saw it as cleaning.
Have to wonder how many dances end with the female being like “your performance was excellent but, unfortunately, you missed a spot.”
I couldn’t think of something right away, but this might fit
White spotted puffer fish build mandalas in the sand, for courtship reasons
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nKyv4ef0Xzw
I’d also look into orangutans. I don’t know for sure, but they seem to learn and mimic human behaviour quite a bit. So even if they didn’t do so by themselves, they may copy the person in pushing snow away
Deer will “scrape” a patch of dirt clear of leaves, sticks, and snow, and then use several types of scent markers to mark the area.
It’s a minor misconception that they use this area to sleep; they don’t scrape their beds.
it’s because of clothes. All animals wearing clothes will do this.
I’ve seen a video of an orangutan wiping stuff off with a cloth.
That would likely be emulation instead of a natural behavioral trait. Orangutan textile technology is not sufficient to develop towels suitable for cleaning.
Here’s an animal wiping something:
If that’s how you wipe: disgustan!
Huh. We’ve all been doing it wrong all along
Show us your tail!
Dude, humans use their hands. What I understand now is that we should basically flap a hand back and forth behind our ass crack as we defecate
My dog would like a word.
Edit: And that word is Taylor Swifting.
That would double it’s vocabulary.
Cats are known for being pretty clean animals. Their spiky tong helps a lot with that.
Yeah but that’s more for self cleaning rather than cleaning the environment of debris
Depends on how you define cleaning or wiping. Few animals can actually wipe stuff, but some exhibit cleaning of one sort or another. I’m going to remove self-cleaning and grooming out of the list. You mean cleaning objects or their environment.
The already mentioned raccoon is one example but with food only. If you accept that, then Ibises have also been seen washing toxic frogs before eating them to remove the skin toxins.
I’m half hearted about the bird of paradise example, since that’s a mating visual display only… But hey, many birds actually clean the interior of their nests. They pick up their chicks droppings and toss them out. It’s not wiping or brushing but it surely is cleaning for the sake of hygiene.
Spiders remove debris from their webs, does that count?
I’ve never seen cats or dogs brush or wipe stuff away either. Cats may toss or brush away things out of boredom, curiosity or simply to reach whatever is underneath provided it’s a few particles and not really digging.
For cleaning like humans do, my money would be on the monkeys though, personally, I haven’t seen or heard much about that happening spontaneously in wild or feral monkeys.
some dogs absolutely “clean” their bed before laying down
Raccoons wash things. Does that count?
