[TERRESTRIALS INTRO]

LULU MILLER: Three, two, one. Imagine ...

BEN TRAMMELL: The upper part of your legs start to shrink.

ALAN GOFFINSKI: And your spine starts to stiffen, and sort of hunch.

BEN TRAMMELL: You're crouched down.

LULU: Your body gets fuzzy.

BEN TRAMMELL: Really hairy, really furry.

LULU: And your fingers shrink but stay super nimble.

BEN TRAMMELL: There is not a tree or a house you cannot climb.

LULU: You develop incredible night vision, arguably ...

BEN TRAMMELL: Better than cats. And you can smell anything.

ALAN: Like a delicious hot meal of garbage.

BEN TRAMMELL: There is no trash can you cannot get into.

ALAN: But you are elusive! Hiding from prying eyes.

BEN TRAMMELL: Kind of like a little gorilla.

LULU: Until someone catches video of you and turns out you look exactly like Bigfoot. Only smaller. And on all fours.

BEN TRAMMELL: Kind of one third the size of your standard raccoon.

LULU: You have become ...

ALAN: Jimothy!

LULU: The coolest little raccoon under the moon.

BEN TRAMMELL: Absolutely. [laughs]

LULU: Now is the part when I make you sing the theme song with me. "Terrestrials. Terrestrials, we are not the worst. We are the ..."

BEN TRAMMELL: Best?

LULU: Best-rials. Yeah, you got it.

BEN TRAMMELL: Oh, the best. Oh man, I did not follow it through. We are the bestrials. All right, I like that.

LULU: Terrestrials is a show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth. I am your host, Lulu Miller, joined as always by my songbud ...

ALAN: [singing] Jimothy!

LULU: Alan.

ALAN: [singing] Jimothy!

LULU AND ALAN: [singing] Jimothy, jima jima jima jimothy-eeeee. [laughs]

LULU: That's right. If you have not heard of this guy, he is the little wild raccoon from Seattle that has been taking the internet by storm! People are calling it Hot Jimothy Summer. And just to describe him, he's not your average trash panda, but way funkier. He looks a little like maybe a two-year-old's drawing of a raccoon, or I think he kind of looks like a football with spider legs. He is messy, he is mangy, he is masked and he is cuter than cute. And something about him has touched the nerve of not just his hometown Seattle, but the world. All of a sudden there are murals of Jimothy, tattoos of Jimothy, flags, t-shirts, poems, tributes! And so today, we wanted to get to the bushy-tailed bottom of who he is and why he's so beloved.

ALAN: Yup! And to kick us off, I called up someone who knows this champ scamp ...

LULU: Nyah!

ALAN: This pipsqueak sneak, swaggin', scavengin', bobbin' goblin better than almost anyone.

BEN TRAMMELL: I've kind of found myself referring to him as an abbreviated raccoon.

ALAN: This is the human who happened to spot Jimothy and record footage of him before he became famous.

BEN TRAMMELL: My name is Ben Trammell. I graduated with my master's in forest ecology.

ALAN: Guy knows his trees and the critters that live in them.

BEN TRAMMELL: I live in Seattle.

ALAN: In a little neighborhood called Ballard with a view of Mt. Rainier.

BEN TRAMMELL: A big volcano right behind the city skyline.

ALAN: Yeah.

BEN TRAMMELL: It's really nice to just kinda sit and watch the nature from my backyard.

ALAN: Ben has found if he sits long enough he can see the crows and the rabbits.

BEN TRAMMELL: I have way too many videos of squirrels and hummingbirds and everything else in the backyard.

ALAN: And one day, months before Jimothy went viral, Ben noticed something.

BEN TRAMMELL: And I was like, "Oh, the raccoons are kinda coming out. That's cool."

ALAN: A little raccoon family, bumbling carefully along the top of a wooden fence.

BEN TRAMMELL: There was the mother raccoon and two, smaller ...

ALAN: Clearly the mother's kits, her little raccoon babies. But among this little fencepost parade Ben also noticed something kind of unexpected that caught his eye.

BEN TRAMMELL: There was this little just kind of a puffball of an animal following them along very clumsily on this fence line, this tiny little raccoon. It had a little cute raccoon face. Called my wife. I was like, "You've gotta see this. Like, I have no idea what I'm looking at here."

ALAN: Ben and his wife Halynn couldn't make sense of what they were seeing.

BEN TRAMMELL: So I started filming them to kind of prove that when I was explaining this to somebody that I wasn't going crazy.

ALAN: What were your first thoughts when you saw Jimothy for the first time?

BEN TRAMMELL: Oh, most of it was recorded on camera.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Halynn: Oh my gosh!]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Ben Trammell: The little baby. Does it have a tail?]

BEN TRAMMELL: I just went into this absolutely just giddy voice, just being able to see this thing.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Ben Trammell: That's a raccoon. No, it's so blurpy!]

BEN TRAMMELL: And so yeah, I filmed what seemed to be the first few videos recorded of Jimothy. We were just smitten watching him.

ALAN: How is he different from other raccoons?

BEN TRAMMELL: His color looks like a normal raccoon.

ALAN: He was a young little Jimothy, maybe jimma-two jimma-three months old at most.

BEN TRAMMELL: But the shape and the way he moved, there was something that made his life a little bit more difficult to move around than your standard raccoon. He looks a little shortened, maybe 60 percent, and these very straight front arms are moving up and down kind of like a nutcracker, like a Christmas play or whatever where they just kind of have their arms straight out in front of them.

ALAN: Just sort of locked into place like a soldier marching.

BEN TRAMMELL: Yeah, very much so.

ALAN: Okay.

ALAN: And as for that striped tail raccoons are known for ...

BEN TRAMMELL: That famous bushy ringed tail.

ALAN: Well, Jimothy just doesn't have it!

BEN TRAMMELL: You can tell there's a little bit of a little pigtail.

ALAN: Little furry pigtail. Okay.

BEN TRAMMELL: Little bitty pigtail.

ALAN: Cute!

LULU: Okay, Alan, wait wait wait, before you go any further, can I just ask a pressing question that I have about this whole situation?

ALAN: Yeah.

LULU: [sings] Oh, what is a raccoon? Yes, what is a raccoon? Is it a rodent or a tiny bear or something more mysterious—out there? Yes, what is a raccoon?

ALAN: [laughs] Wait. Good question! What is a raccoon?

LULU AND ALAN: [sings] Is it a trash panda or a weasel, a kind of badger with little feetzels? What is a raccoon? Oh, what is a raccoon?

ALAN: [sings] It's time to finally solve this mystery, Terrestrials here to break the news: A raccoon is a ...

BEN TRAMMELL: Uh, procyon?

ALAN: It's not a tiny bear, it's not a panda.

BEN TRAMMELL: Not a rodent.

ALAN: Not a weasel.

LULU: [laughs]

ALAN: It's its own thing.

BEN TRAMMELL: It's their own genus, yeah.

LULU: Wow, special! It's a special thing!

ALAN: Yeah, and these special little masked bandits originally lived around rivers, using their handlike paws to nab fish and grubs, and when cities sprung up they showed themselves to be master problem solvers, opening doors and trashcans and even latches to get at our snacks. And because of that, lots of people call them intelligent.

LULU: They sound pretty intelligent to me.

ALAN: But the thing is they're not using the kind of intelligence that primates like monkeys and humans use.

LULU: Hmm.

ALAN: You know, reasoning, plotting, planning to break into our stuff. Instead, their method? Chaos! They will shake, rattle and roll—and smash and bang and bash and throttle and crash and kick at the trashcans until they break into them.

LULU: [laughs] Okay, so they're just masters of anarchy?

ALAN: Yup. And they are unbelievably persistent. They will just go beast mode on a thing, using those little fingerlike digits to pry and scratch at knobs and latches, until—success! Which brings us back to young Jimothy.

BEN TRAMMELL: He just really was clumsy. He knew what he was trying to do, but I think having really stiff front arms really hindered him from having really good balance.

ALAN: As Ben filmed what he thought might be some of Jimothy's first moments leaving his nest and exploring the world ...

BEN TRAMMELL: I was really worried. There are predators around. There are coyotes. There are hawks everywhere around Seattle. So I was just worried.

ALAN: Yeah, easy pickings?

BEN TRAMMELL: Easy pickings.

ALAN: Nevertheless, Jimothy persisted, climbing down trees and up brick walls, squeezing through tiny openings, and smash-bang-cracking his way into trash cans like the best of 'em.

BEN TRAMMELL: There was no stopping what he was trying to do. No one told him he wasn't supposed to do it.

ALAN: [laughs]

BEN TRAMMELL: He was just trying his hardest to do exactly what his siblings were doing.

ALAN: Ben fell in love with this little guy, with his unique look.

BEN TRAMMELL: His fur is a little scragglier and a little flattened down, like if you've laid in bed too long.

ALAN: He had bedhead.

BEN TRAMMELL: Yeah, he had bedhead. I became pretty smitten with that guy and started kinda keeping an eye on him.

ALAN: What do you think he had going for him that allowed him to survive the difficult tasks ahead of him?

BEN TRAMMELL: It was without a doubt a supporting family.

[RACCOON FAMILY: Jimothy! You good bro? We gotcha, little buddy!]

BEN TRAMMELL: His mother, she was just kind of walking behind him on the fence line.

[RACCOON MOM: Oh, you can do it.]

BEN TRAMMELL: With, like, kind of one paw on him and one paw on the fence.

[RACCOON MOM: Oops, careful there. Try to walk steady.]

BEN TRAMMELL: She would alternate a hand and just kind of keep him from falling.

[RACCOON MOM: Whoops! You got this.]

BEN TRAMMELL: He was really cared for, but he was given the opportunity to succeed and the opportunity to fail. She was truly, like, letting him find his own way, and then when he got into a pickle, when he got somewhere he really couldn't get out of ...

ALAN: That's when she'd swoop in and rescue, picking him up with her mouth and swinging him along back and forth by the scruff of his neck as she waddled on.

[JIMOTHY: Jimo-whee!]

ALAN: Being motherly, but also, like, respecting his process and, like, letting him figure it out and giving him some space to learn, yeah.

BEN TRAMMELL: I think that's so much of the beauty of it.

ALAN: It wasn't just his mom though. His siblings ...

[RACCOON SIBLINGS: Wah hoo, let's go! C'mon c'mon!]

BEN TRAMMELL: They would run way ahead because they're really fast.

[RACCOON SIBLINGS: Tag, you're it! Can't catch me.]

BEN TRAMMELL: They're young, playful raccoons.

ALAN: Faster than Jimothy right?

BEN TRAMMELL: Way faster than Jimothy, yeah. But then they would come back and they would circle him.

[RACCOON SIBLINGS: Jimothy, how are you doing? Yeah, how are you, bro?]

BEN TRAMMELL: They would just be right next to him.

[RACCOON SIBLINGS: Love ya, little buddy!]

BEN TRAMMELL: Like a litter of puppies or kittens or whatever.

[JIMOTHY: Jimma-joy! Jimma-glee!]

BEN TRAMMELL: And just kind of make sure he was doing all right, make sure he was still with them.

[RACCOONS: It's our worry free philosophy.]

ALAN: Making sure that Jimothy could jimma-be all he could be!

[RACCOONS: Raccoona matata, raccoona matata, raccoona matata.]

LULU: [laughs]

ALAN: Which sort of gave Ben a new understanding of raccoons—and nature in general.

BEN TRAMMELL: We kind of see them as this very wild creature that hisses at us when we turn the floodlights on outside, but they're a very caring and loving species.

ALAN: That's so cool! I mean, it seems like a lot of the time when people talk about Charles Darwin, survival of the fittest, it's always like, "the strongest survive." But here, with the raccoons, it's the strong family, the strong community that survives all together.

BEN TRAMMELL: I think this is one of those stories that allows people to see that compassion isn't a mistake. There's a lot of collective action and mutual aid, so to speak, in nature.

ALAN: Yeah, the compassion, that care we feel as people is natural, and the desire to help each other along and lift each other up, and pick each other up when one of us needs it.

BEN TRAMMELL: Yeah.

ALAN: And Jimothy and Jimothy's family are just such, such a good example of that.

BEN TRAMMELL: That little being is bringing so much joy for so many people.

ALAN: Now Ben says he doesn't much like to interfere with nature, but even he did his part to help Jimothy.

BEN TRAMMELL: When he was really small ...

[JIMOTHY: Whoa!]

BEN TRAMMELL: ... he fell off of our fence.

ALAN: Oh no!

BEN TRAMMELL: Six-and-a-half, seven-foot wooden fence in the backyard.

ALAN: Yikes!

BEN TRAMMELL: Pretty long fall for a baby, right?

ALAN: Yeah.

BEN TRAMMELL: They're pretty resilient, but he was obviously very startled.

[JIMOTHY: Uh-oh! Jimma-no!]

BEN TRAMMELL: And the mother raccoon was very startled as well. So I took a little spade, my garden spade ...

ALAN: And shoveled out a little tunnel under the fence so he wouldn't be trapped.

BEN TRAMMELL: The next night, and sure enough, he just came traipsing right through while his family crossed on the fence above him, and they met him on the other side.

[JIMOTHY: Jimma-free!]

ALAN: Oh my gosh, that must have been so satisfying.

BEN TRAMMELL: It was really satisfying. Yeah, he just kinda popped out the other side.

ALAN: Not only is his mom and his siblings all helping out, but he's got old Ben. He's got old Ben pitching in.

BEN TRAMMELL: I guess so, yeah. So I kind of kept an eye out for him.

ALAN: Yeah, yeah.

BEN TRAMMELL: There was a time ...

ALAN: Ben says one time he was walking out to his car eating a clementine, and into the yard prowls the neighborhood sourpuss kitty cat.

BEN TRAMMELL: I love cats, but he was a bully cat.

ALAN: Oh, the neighborhood bully cat.

BEN TRAMMELL: And then I saw it hunting Jimothy.

ALAN: Oh, no!

BEN TRAMMELL: Yeah.

ALAN: Running after Jimothy?

BEN TRAMMELL: Just stalking him.

ALAN: Oh, like crouched over like a tiger?

BEN TRAMMELL: Boy, I—yeah, I let that clementine fly, man.

ALAN: [laughs]

BEN TRAMMELL: Like, I just absolutely just hummed it at that cat.

[Citrus attack!]

BEN TRAMMELL: It hit pretty close to him, enough to scare him and startle him off.

ALAN: Yeah, yeah. No cats were harmed in the making of this story.

BEN TRAMMELL: No, the cat was fine.

ALAN: Before long, with a little help from his friends and family, Ben witnessed this little furball turn into a slightly-less-little furball, gain strength, improve his balance and grow up.

BEN TRAMMELL: And he's living this beautiful life.

ALAN: Full of confidence and love and trash!

BEN TRAMMELL: Yeah, of course.

ALAN: But Jimothy's whole family suddenly faced a new challenge when one day ...

BEN TRAMMELL: Their trees got cut down.

ALAN: Oh no!

[JIMOTHY: My Jimma-tree!]

BEN TRAMMELL: I heard the saws. I just saw them all kind of coming out across our fence line in the middle of the day.

[JIMOTHY: Jimma-flee!]

ALAN: The raccoon family all ran off, and Jimothy kinda disappeared on Ben.

BEN TRAMMELL: He was gone! I was like, "Oh, man, I just—I miss this little guy."

ALAN: With Jimothy's habitat destroyed, the big cozy cedar trees that Jimothy and his family had made their home, would this young raccoon be able to make it in this world? And would Ben ever again see his beloved, bedraggled raccoon buddy? We'll find out after the break.

LULU: Jimo-bee right back! Nyah!

ALAN: I would raccoon-mend you stay tuned.

LULU: Vroot! Terrestrials is back, and when we left off, young Jimothy had gone missing, forced to relocate after his tree home got cut down.

ALAN: Yeah, at this point Ben is pretty worried.

BEN TRAMMELL: He was gone. And I just—I hope he's alright.

ALAN: Ben considered the possibility that Jimothy hadn't made it. But then one day ...

[NEWS CLIP: A peculiar little raccoon is taking the internet by storm.]

[NEWS CLIP: It looks like he was squished up and hunched over.]

[NEWS CLIP: This unusual yet adorable furball is none other than Jimothy.]

BEN TRAMMELL: I was like, "That's our guy!"

ALAN: [laughs]

ALAN: Clearly Ben wasn't the only person out there who found this short king absolutely charming.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: What am I looking at?]

ALAN: A video someone posted to the internet clearly shows Jimothy jaunting around another part of town.]

BEN TRAMMELL: And he seemed to be doing just fine.

[NEWS CLIP: I want to know who came up with that name, Jimothy. Because it is perfect.]

[NEWS CLIP: He's become somewhat of an international sensation.]

[NEWS CLIP: You're getting a Jimothy tattoo, right?]

[NEWS CLIP: Definitely.]

[NEWS CLIP: It has blown up worldwide.]

ALAN: Almost overnight, the whole world was introduced to Jimothy.

[NEWS CLIP: Now he's become an unlikely celebrity in Seattle.]

ALAN: Another Seattle celebrity, songwriter Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes wrote a beautiful little tribute to him.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Robin Pecknold: [sings] Jim Jimothy, Jim Jimothy, Jim Jim Jimothy, how lovely and lucky a creature is he? Jim Jimothy, Jim Jimothy, sweet young raccoon, he's rolled his way onto the national news. So let's throw him some trash, that's lucky, too!]

ALAN: It really seems like Seattle, where you and Jimothy live, has embraced Jimothy as this sort of champion or good luck charm for Seattle specifically. Why—why is that?

BEN TRAMMELL: A lot of us consider ourselves kind of weirdos, weirdos just doing their own thing in a place with other weirdos, and I think he just perfectly fits that mold, just a little weirdo existing in his own little world, not bothering anybody and doing just fine.

ALAN: [laughs]

BEN TRAMMELL: I've probably seen 10 or 15 tattoos on the internet already. I was like, "Oh man, I cannot wait for the Jimothy graffiti murals."

ALAN: I'm sure.

BEN TRAMMELL: And they're already up. There's already multiple up.

ALAN: Multiple murals up in Seattle, huh?

BEN TRAMMELL: Yeah, already.

ELSA SJUNNESON: I also thought, "Of course this is in Seattle."

LULU: Why? Why?

ELSA SJUNNESON: Because Seattle is home to weird people and things.

ALAN: [laughs] Who's this, Lulu?

LULU: This is my friend Elsa Sjunneson, who is also from Seattle.

ELSA SJUNNESON: When I was growing up here, it was the 1990s, which was the height of what was the grunge movement.

LULU: Yes, the best music! Kind of like messy clothes, unwashed mangy hair, honestly everyone kind of looks like they crawled out of a trash can.

ELSA SJUNNESON: Everything was just a little grimy but, like, there was so many cool, weird things happening.

LULU: And so she says Jimothy, who literally did just crawl out of a trash can and has a look that's more alternative than the mainstream raccoon, makes the perfect mascot for her beloved city.

ELSA SJUNNESON: Right.

LULU: What do you make of the world's love for him?

ELSA SJUNNESON: Everybody likes an interesting animal story.

LULU: It's like "New animal just dropped."

ELSA SJUNNESON: Yeah, everybody has a different reason. And for some people it's just, "What a cute raccoon."

LULU: Yeah.

ELSA SJUNNESON: But in my community, which is the disability community, people are starting to relate to Jimothy because he's disabled.

LULU: Huh!

LULU: See, Elsa herself is disabled.

ELSA SJUNNESON: I'm deaf-blind. I don't see out of one eye, and then my other one I don't see super well, and then I wear hearing aids.

LULU: And on top of being a sci-fi writer, a fencer, a swing dancer, a mother and more, she's also an activist, who advocates for disabled people like her, some of whom move through life a little differently.

ELSA SJUNNESON: Jimothy has a spinal condition. That is why his body is the way that it is.

LULU: Right.

ELSA SJUNNESON: So for the disability community, people are sort of picking Jimothy up like a little bit of a cute, weird mascot.

LULU: Huh!

LULU: In recent weeks people have slapped Jimothy on the disability pride flag.

ELSA SJUNNESON: So it is a gray background with colored stripes on a diagonal.

LULU: Oh, it's a great mix of colors.

LULU: Made video tributes to him, nominated him as the disability pride month icon.

LULU: He looks so cute in all these memes!

ELSA SJUNNESON: We don't think about people as cute just because they're disabled. Somebody can be cute and disabled, and they're two separate things.

LULU: Yeah. What's, like, the right way to appreciate or celebrate Jimothy in this moment? Where look, he is famous, he is viral, he is beloved.

ELSA SJUNNESON: Yeah.

LULU: And his body is different than the quote, "average" raccoon.

ELSA SJUNNESON: You don't want to just sort of hide that somebody's disabled, because it's part of your life, right?

LULU: Yeah.

ELSA SJUNNESON: Jimothy is disabled, and that's part of what everybody loves about him. So if you love Jimothy, you could read a book about disability and learn a little bit what that might be like.

LULU: Yeah.

ELSA SJUNNESON: One thing you could do to celebrate Jimothy, the artist Ryan Henry Ward, he just did a painting of Jimothy, auctioned it off and raised, I think it was $54,000.

LULU: It's actually now up to $78,000.

ALAN: Whoa!

ELSA SJUNNESON: For the Ballard Food Bank, which is in Seattle, in Jimothy's honor.

LULU: Wow!

ALAN: That's incredible.

ELSA SJUNNESON: If you love Jimothy because he is a different raccoon ...

LULU: Yeah.

ELSA SJUNNESON: ... then you should probably love the humans that are around you who are also different.

ALAN: If Jimothy could speak for himself, what do you think he would say to us?

BEN TRAMMELL: Thank you for not locking the compost bins at night.

ALAN: [laughs] What do you think he would say about his newfound fame?

BEN TRAMMELL: I don't know that he would give two thoughts about it, but maybe he'd be happy that he was able to give folks some sort of solace that it's okay to be who you are and exist in whatever form you're in, whatever form you want to be in. The goal is just to find the weirdos you want to be around.

[ALAN: [sings] At home in Seattle, surrounded by mountaintops. Digging through the dumpster, looking for your lunch. I love you, sweet Jimothy, my short king. You rule my world. Jimothy Pokin', my trash king. Pokin', Pokin'. Jimothy Pokin', my trash king. Kind of short, kind of round, in our hearts we hold you dear. Just a young, grungy furball, we love you 'cause you're weird. Raccoon son, you're the one I wish that I could pet, but I won't 'cause you're a wild animal and it wouldn't be safe. Jimothy, can't you see? You live rent-free in my head. Jimothy, won't you please run for president? Jimothy, Jimothy! Come as you are, Jimothy, I just want you to be running free as my friend till the end. Jimothy, yeah. Jimothy, yeah. Jimothy, Jimothy Pokin', yeah, my trash date. Jimothy Pokin', Pokin'. Jimothy, Jimothy Pokin', yeah, my trash date. Jimothy, Jimothy.

LULU: And that's what we call a supercut of Seattle-based grunge bands, Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Soundgarden. Thank you for that, Alan Jimo-goffinski. And there can't be anything more rad, gnarly or epic about to happen—gasp! What's that?

BADGER: Excuse me, I have a question.

BADGER: Me too.

BADGER: Me three.

BADGER: Me four.

LULU: The Badgers! Listeners with badgering questions for our experts

LULU: You ready?

BEN TRAMMELL: Go for it.

TEDDY: Hi, I'm Teddy from Seattle. I'm five years old. Are there any foods that raccoons won't eat?

BEN TRAMMELL: Oof, I feel like you'd be hard-pressed to find one. They are the classic omnivore. They'll eat anything. They dig through the trash every night. I would assume they all have their personal preferences, but I know that they will eat most things.

BADGER: Hi, I'm Valerie from Seattle, and I'm 33 years old. We call him Jimothy, but do raccoons give each other names?

BEN TRAMMELL: I don't know if they go as far as to name, but they can definitely identify the sounds of each other's calls.

LULU: Huh, so they communicate?

BEN TRAMMELL: Definitely. You can hear them chittering. I've heard them make loud noises if they're being chased by something.

LULU: Oh! That's what I call some serious trash talking—trash, talking, talking near the trash—nyah!

BEN TRAMMELL: Yes. [laughs]

BOB: Hi there. I'm Bob from Seattle and I'm 67 years old. There have been sightings of other raccoons here in Seattle with Jimothy's hunch. Is it possible that they are Jimothy's not-too-distant relatives?

BEN TRAMMELL: I had the same thought. My next door neighbor showed me a video of one from 2017 that was taken just a few blocks away from me with a very, very similar, looking body type.

ALAN: Wow!

BEN TRAMMELL: And looked much older, which kind of gives us some hope that he'll have a long life.

DANIELLE: I'm Danielle from Seattle and I'm 31 years old. I thought raccoons were nocturnal. Why is Jimothy out frolicking in daytime?

BEN TRAMMELL: I grew up in the Southeast United States, and you did not see them unless it was pitch black outside. But raccoons here in Seattle, they seem to have their own time schedules.

LINEA VEDDER: Hi, I'm Linea Vedder, 10th cousin of Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder. Are possums friends with raccoons?

BEN TRAMMELL: They do occupy a similar niche space out in the forest.

LULU: Yeah, like theoretically competing for food?

BEN TRAMMELL: But I can't imagine they would fight over too many things. I think raccoons are usually a little bit speedier, but possums have been around a lot longer, so I'm sure they've figured out how to interact with them.

ALAN: Huh! I didn't know that. Is that true?

BEN TRAMMELL: Possums are like one of the oldest animal with fur in existence.

ALAN: Whoa, that's cool! That's cool.

BEN TRAMMELL: Yeah, they're a very, very old species.

EDA: Hi, I'm Eda from Seattle and I'm two. Where do raccoons sleep?

BEN TRAMMELL: They can sleep a lot of different places. My neighbor has had to run some out from their crawl space under their house. I know they can live in hollowed out trees. And then these were, in these old cedars.

HANS: Hello! I'm Hans from Seattle. Three years old. Do raccoons cuddle in their sleep?

LULU: Oh, good question! Do they cuddle?

BEN TRAMMELL: I sure hope so.

ALAN: [laughs]

BEN TRAMMELL: I do think they kind of all kind of sleep in a pile. It seems like a really good way to keep warm.

ALAN: Ding! Fact check says indeed, they do form a cuddle puddle when they sleep, especially in the wintertime, and especially the young kits.

LULU: Aww!

ANNE: Hi, I'm Anne from Seattle, and I'm 70 years old. How are raccoons so good at opening trash cans and things?

BEN TRAMMELL: They have the closest thing to an opposable thumb that isn't a primate in the animal kingdom. They basically have human-like hands. They can open things that other animals wouldn't be able to because they can grab onto them.

LULU: Hey, I'm Lulu. I'm 43 years old. My question is: Do raccoons actually run away from someone saying "Scram?"

BEN TRAMMELL: I can't imagine they're—they're smarter than cats, and I think they have a healthy sense of caution, but I think they have a pretty good sense of when they're safe versus when they're not, so I'm sure they can be startled and driven off. But at least around here in the neighborhoods, they know that they're pretty safe.

LULU: Oh, and I have one more question for Elsa. You mentioned reading a book to learn more about disabilities. Do you have a favorite book that you would recommend for kids?

ELSA SJUNNESON: We Move Together. It's a picture book. It is just about the different ways that disabled people move their bodies.

LULU: Cool!

ELSA SJUNNESON: The other one is called All the Way to the Top: How One Girl's Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything. It is about a girl named Jennifer Chaffins.

LULU: She uses a wheelchair but, as Elsa explains, one day she climbed out of it and ...

ELSA SJUNNESON: She crawled up the steps of the Capitol when she was eight years old to protest for the Americans with Disabilities Act.

LULU: Wow, that is commitment!

ELSA SJUNNESON: Yeah. And for the parents ...

LULU: Yeah?

ELSA SJUNNESON: ... I do have a book coming out this fall for grownups. It's called Dear Blind Lady, and it actually has an entire chapter for parents about how to talk to your kids about disability.

LULU: Cool! And we will link to those books, and some of Elsa's other cool work right here in the show notes, right where you're listening. Just click 'em. That's all for today, and I won't tell you that among the list of grossest things raccoons will eat, you may find moldy bread, spoiled meat and even maggot-infested roadkill. I won't tell you that, because I'm nice.

LULU: Terrestrials was created by me, Lulu Miller, with WNYC Studios. This episode was produced by Alan Jimo-goffinski, and edited and sound designed by Mira Jimo-Burt-Wintonick. Our executive producer, or EP, our E-jimo-Pee, is Sarah Sandbach. I'll stop. Our team also includes Ana González, Tanya Chawla, Joe Plourde and Natalia Ramirez. Fact-checking by Diane Jimo-kelly. I couldn't stop.

LULU: Huge thanks to Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes. We were honored you created that sweet Jim-Jimothy Jim-Jimothy lullaby for us, and we hope you jimo-sleep easy for all the nights going forward.

LULU: Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and the John Templeton Foundation, thank you! And finally, before we go, reminder that if you like what we are doing here at Terrestrials, the best way you can support our work is by joining the Terrestrials Explorers' Club. You toss a few bucks our way each month, and as a thank you you get all kinds of cool perks like invites to special events, birthday shout-outs from me and Alan, sponsor-free listening, and if you do it this summer, you will also get a Terrestrials magnifying glass necklace. It is very cool! And it can also turn into a keychain. So if you're interested, have your adult go check it out at TerrestrialsPodcast.org/donate. That's TerrestrialsPodcast.org/donate. And either way, Jimo-thanks for listening. Stay scrappy, stay weird. See you in a couple spins of this mangy ol' planet of ours. Fwoo fwoo. Jimo-bye!

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