What animal did I see from my balcony this evening?

July 16, 2009 5:45 AM

I saw a 'new' animal from my balcony this evening and have had no luck finding anything on the net that matches.

It was passing by in the shallow creek below my home (western suburbs of Tokyo), not too long after sunset - still light enough for me to get a very clear view. Tanuki are very common around here, so when I saw the movement I first thought that's what it was, but this was completely different. Nothing 'doglike' about it at all.

The head looked like a badger - with a pronounced snout, and a white line running down the front. The forequarters were low, and the body rose up to a pronounced humped shape at the rear. Very sleek, nothing fluffy at all.

Where the body ended and the tail began was difficult to determine. The tail was very thick at the base - maybe I could have just got my two hands around it - and it tapered off just like an otter's tail does, and seemed to move in the same 'snaky' fashion.

It was walking through the shallow water, and stopped directly below me to chew on one of the river plants for a while (a kind of fern-like plant growing on one of the stones). I could easily hear the tearing sound of the plant being pulled apart and chewed.

Size-wise it was something over a meter long (maybe around three feet tip to tail), and seemed quite a 'heavy' animal, although it moved very smoothly. It climbed the river embankment (man-made stone embankment) very easily, and then moved away into a nearby wooded area.

I started searching by looking up badgers, but the tail on this was completely different from any of the badger images I turned up. Badger-like head, otter-like tail ... any ideas?

(I might also add that we read frequent newspaper reports here in Tokyo of non-native animals being sighted in the city here. It seems fairly common for people to get something exotic as a pet, and then abandon it when it grows too large to care for. So this could be something from anywhere on the planet, I think ...)

posted by woodblock100 to pets & animals (23 comments total)

Mongoose?
posted by SassHat at 5:50 AM on July 16

My first thought was wolverine, but I couldn't find any pictures with a white line on the snout. The tail doesn't match either. Maybe if it was wet? It's definitely not native to your area.
posted by diogenes at 5:54 AM on July 16

The mongoose pics I'm finding all seem to show 'fluffy' tails, that leave the body at a fairly high location. This tail was very sleek, and wasn't 'elevated' at all, but seemed to 'drag' ...

I looked at wolverines too, thinking of a kind of weasel-family connection, but none of them seemed to have this badgery snout, and they also seemed much more furry.
posted by woodblock100 at 5:59 AM on July 16

If a mongoose had just been swimming, its tail would not be fluffy but heavy and wet and not apt to be held high.
posted by fish tick at 6:17 AM on July 16

Japanese marten?
posted by restless_nomad at 6:17 AM on July 16

If a mongoose had just been swimming ...

Yes maybe ... But I'm not seeing anything like the long and white-striped snout in those pics.

marten

These seem to have long 'thin' tails, that don't taper at all. The tail on this animal definitely tapered all the way, just like the otter tails I see in photos (and video)

And the martens seem much too 'cute' and pet-like. This one didn't have any of the cuddly-mammal feel about it at all.
posted by woodblock100 at 6:25 AM on July 16

Badger?
posted by HuronBob at 8:29 AM on July 16

oops, sorry, didn't catch that you had already looked up badger..
posted by HuronBob at 8:32 AM on July 16

If it had just come out of the river then "furriness" and "fluffiness" may be misleading.

There appears to be a Japanese River Otter, but it's thought to be extinct, and in any case doesn't seem to have white markings on the head.
posted by restless_nomad at 9:09 AM on July 16

Appears to be very much non-native to Japan, but maybe it could have been a grison?
posted by specialagentwebb at 9:29 AM on July 16

Perhaps a Raccoon Dog?
posted by Xoebe at 9:51 AM on July 16

The tail sounds more like a muskrat-type animal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muskrat) but again, they don't have white stripes.
posted by Eicats at 9:51 AM on July 16

Sounds to me like it could have been a mink, though I am having trouble locating images of the ones in Japan.
posted by misha at 10:49 AM on July 16

Perhaps a Raccoon Dog?

This is the same as a tanuki, and the OP said it definitely wasn't that.
posted by dlugoczaj at 11:21 AM on July 16

Okojo? They're native to Japan, but I thought they would be a little more rural...
posted by Alison at 12:07 PM on July 16

There is also a list of the Mammals of Japan for your to peruse.
posted by Alison at 12:15 PM on July 16

Grison?

Overall shape : quite close. Colouring : not at all. (Interesting! I wouldn't have thought that there were still animals that I had never even heard of!)

Mink?

Overall shape : similar. Colouring : no way. Snout : seems too short and stubby. Tail : very similar

Okojo? (Stoat)

These are much too lithe and slender. This thing was much more 'bulky' and heavy-set.

Mammals of Japan

Nice find! The only thing on that page even close is the badger. But no way can I find a picture of a badger anywhere on the net that has one with a tail like this animal that I saw. Its tail was almost kind of 'dinosaurish' in the way that it flowed from the body, rather than being something 'pinned on' as a kind of attachment.

I keep a camera in my little bag of accessories that I carry from upstairs when going down to the workshop on the river, but I didn't have it with me this time ... Doubt that I'll get another chance to see this one soon! :-(
posted by woodblock100 at 3:27 PM on July 16

Totally off topic - your work is beautiful, I'll be ordering shortly.
posted by lowlife at 6:37 PM on July 16

A pine marten? Snout is longer than the Japanese marten, coloring and tail aspect seem variable.

There is also the Yellow-throated Marten, which has a crazy long tail.
posted by oneirodynia at 6:50 PM on July 16

Martens ...

These certainly do have a similar body shape, no doubt about it. But the martens seem more light-footed and fox-like, and their tail seems much more like an 'appendage'. The animal I saw had a tail that was much more 'integral' to the body, if that makes any sense ...

Not sure how much more I can offer on the description. I watched it for just two or three minutes in the evening, but since then, I've viewed so many different images/videos that I'm getting to the point where I am becoming an unreliable witness! "She wore a white dress. No, maybe it was black! No, it was white ..."

off-topic ...

(Umm ... thanks for the nice comment)
posted by woodblock100 at 7:10 PM on July 16

Masked civet?
posted by tinamonster at 7:18 PM on July 16

Masked civet?

That's it! That's got to be it! Both the images and description from this page match pretty much exactly! The white stripe on the snout, the overall body shape, the thick tail ...

Thank you!
posted by woodblock100 at 7:49 PM on July 16

You described that animal very well.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 8:30 AM on July 17