TIL: The raccoon, to a surprising number of quite disparate world languages, is the “wash bear”, derived from its habit of appearing to wash its food.

A table of the word for raccoon in nine languages — German Waschbär, Dutch wasbeer, Swedish tvättbjörn, Danish and Norwegian vaskebjørn, Chinese 浣熊, Japanese 洗熊, Estonian pesukaru, Finnish pesukarhu — every one of them literally meaning “wash bear”.

A list continuing the raccoon etymologies: Polish szop pracz (“washer raccoon”), Russian енот-полоскун (“rinsing raccoon”), and Ukrainian єнот-полоскун, the same idea.

Related: The real names of animals!