Jimothy the raccoon has a rare spinal condition. Here’s what that means. | Popular Science

Search for:

svg]:fill-accent-900 [&>svg]:stroke-accent-900">

svg]:fill-accent-900 [&>svg]:stroke-accent-900">

svg]:fill-accent-900 [&>svg]:stroke-accent-900">

svg]:fill-accent-900 [&>svg]:stroke-accent-900">

Jimothy has captured the hearts of America. But is he okay?

Image: Kiana Hall

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week.

Email address

Sign up<br>Thank you!

By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.

You’d have to be living under a dumpster not to have heard of Jimothy, Seattle’s favorite raccoon and the internet’s newest folk hero. He’s inspired nicknames like ‘King Jimothy,’ as well as fan art, tattoos, and even his own meme, ‘Hot Jimothy Summer,‘ after racking up millions of views this month. Beyond the basic masked bandit cuteness of his species, Jimothy has become a sensation largely thanks to his compact, adorably round shape, the apparent result of a rare condition called short spine syndrome.

Jimothy first turned up near a Goodwill store in Ballard, Washington.

“I initially thought I saw a cat under a car and wanted to have a closer look,” Kiana Hall, the Seattle resident whose video introduced Jimothy to the world, tells Popular Science, “then realized it wasn’t the shape of a cat at all.” It wasn’t until Jimothy turned around that Hall noticed his telltale markings and realized he was a raccoon. As for the origin of his unusual name?

“He just looked like a Jimothy to me,” says Hall.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kiana (@c1vrgr1)

Online, commenters have since compared Jimothy’s unusual appearance to a cryptid, evoking everything from Bigfoot to the chupacabra.

It’s Jimothy’s world, and we’re all living in it, but his fame raises some real questions about what causes short spine syndrome, why it’s so rarely documented in wild animals, and what it might mean for Jimothy’s future.

So what exactly is short spine syndrome, and how did it leave Jimothy with that unmistakable, highly lovable, no-neck silhouette?

What’s wrong with Jimothy? Why does he look like that?

Short spine syndrome is a rare genetic condition, says Julian D. Avery, an ecologist at Penn State University. A faulty recessive gene causes the condition, meaning an animal needs two copies, one from each parent, for the syndrome to actually appear.

“The odds of putting two individuals together that have it are generally pretty rare,” Avery says, “and probably rare in part because the animals with this condition will have significantly more challenges than a normally formed animal would have in any kind of context.”

Short spine syndrome is a condition that affects the formation of a developing spine, leaving an animal with a shortened, compressed, or fused set of vertebrae. Avery likens the process to rolling out a long tube of Pillsbury dough, then pressing down at regular intervals to pinch off individual segments, roughly how a developing spine differentiates into distinct vertebrae. “That does not unfold properly in animals that have these faulty genes,” he says.

The added challenges for animals with short spine syndrome likely explain why cases like Jimothy’s are so rarely seen at all. Jimothy, though, seems to be one of the lucky ones.

“He seems to have made it through this developmental process in a way that allows him to be pretty successful,” Avery says. “He or she. I don’t think anyone knows whether it’s male or female.”

Related 'Ask Us Anything' Stories

Could raccoons become the new dogs?

Do animals really mate for life?

Animals have personalities. Here’s what shapes them.

Why some animals eat their babies

Why sloths risk their lives to poop

How marine mammals stay hydrated in a salty sea

Will Jimothy the raccoon be okay?

Despite his unusual shape and the difficulties it might pose, Avery says animals with short spine syndrome generally have normal brain function and internal organs.

“There’s no reason to think the lungs are compromised or the brain is compromised,” he says. “I would expect that Jimothy would have a normal life.”

Given how Jimothy appears in his viral videos, actively foraging, climbing, and moving with apparent ease, there’s real reason for optimism. Raccoons as a species tend to come equipped with this kind of adaptability, Avery says.

“Raccoons are crazy resourceful,” he says. “They’re one of those species that is generalized enough that they can make a go in many kinds of situations and be successful.”

The bigger risk to Jimothy isn’t his condition, Avery points out. It’s how people react to him.

“When people start feeding wild animals, then they start hanging around in unsafe ways,” he says. Habituated animals become more likely to be...