Piebald Raccoon and What they look like?

Have you ever seen a raccoon with an odd coloration? The Call of the Wild video game makes several kinds of odd colored animals in their game such as piebald raccoon, albino animals, or melanistic animals because of the novelty and scarcity of the animals in real life.

One of the rarest types of raccoon colorations is a piebald raccoon. The piebald raccoon is a light colored almost white raccoon but still has some coloration in its fur. This coloration can affect part or all of the raccoon’s fur color.

According to Wikipedia the “bald” part of piebald refers to the white coloration of the animal, like the bald eagle. Unlike other animals that have patches of what appears to be albino or white sections of fur or skin a piebald raccoon takes on a more gray or white coloration.

Albino and Piebald Raccoons

Although a raccoon may appear to be albino or partially albino when they are piebald, this coloration is usually not connected to the same issue that causes albinism.

You can tell based on the coloration of the eyes of the animal if it has albinism which are usually red in color. They also have a pink or skin color nose instead of usual a black nose (Wikipedia Piebaldism).

In piebald colored animals the eye coloration is normal colored, for raccoons that is black. The normal nose color for raccoons is also black.

The fur and skin coloration in raccoons that are piebald are lightly colored due to a disorder where the pigment is not produced in high quantities and causes the raccoon to look light in color.

The melon or the pigment in the fur and skin is dormant due to a low number of cells that produce this pigment or is produced in low quantities.

Piebald raccoons are usually can be white, blond, or gray in color and have some streaks of darker fur.

Black Piebald Raccoon

Because a normal colored raccoon is usually black, white, and gray, this variation will be extremely hard to spot because it would look like a slightly darker or different fur pattern of a already dark colored raccoon and would probably take further testing to verify.

Some raccoons may have melanism which is where they produce extra melon or pigmentation and causes them to be black and not have the normal color variations.

Difference Between Piebald and Normal Raccoon Colors

A normal raccoon has dark black mask on its face usually surrounded by white patches and may range from black to a red brown color. Raccoons usually have dark gray and light brown striped tails and black and gray fur.

As explained earlier in this article differences are stark in the coloration differences unlike the black piebald raccoon. A very light colors in a piebald raccoon makes them stand out and my be one of the reasons piebald raccoons are not seen very often.

A light colored raccoon my stand out in the woods and not allows them to have a better camoflash. This will make them easier to spot by predators such as coyotes and humans, and cause them to be more of a target. Thus natural selection will allow less piebald raccoons to breed and not pass along the mutated genes to more generations of raccoons.

How Rare Are Piebald Raccoons?

Piebald raccoons are super rare and hard to even find images of online. I personally have never seen one and some people seem to believe they are more rare than albino raccoons.

Anyway, this coloration in raccoons is extremely rare. One animal control operator was able to catch one on a job and had it mounted because he had never seen one before after catching thousands of raccoons. I found this story on facebook.

So if you ever get the chance to see a piebald raccoon remember you have a potential once in a lifetime opportunity.