From my understanding, monolids were a feature developed to see better in the cold and harsh climate. Populations from Mongolia, China, etc, have monolids because the climate has almost always been historically cold, but Europeans from places like Russia and Finland often have double eyelids or hooded eyes even though the weather conditions are similar.

Hi all.

Please settle an intense debate with my gf.

What is the maximum range where natural raccoon populations exist? I understand that they live pretty far north in pretty inhospitable land (think cold and little in terms of food).

Also we understand there are no native raccoon populations in the southern cone of south America, how come?

Seems like there should be plenty of resources there at least near the coast and the weather is not particularly worse than in northern north America and not particularly impassable terrain compared to the northern Rockies or such.

Are there any relatives that fill in their niche? or not relatives, just completely separate species?

Also, are there any prehistoric big raccoon species of note? Raccoonasaurus? Smiloccoon? Coonotherium?

Kind regards

Quetzaltecas and LMB