Who/what made these tracks?

April 27, 2022 10:03 AM

I noticed a curious pattern of marks left in the pollen on top of our trash bin the other morning. Here are a few photos. The second one has my hand in the photo for scale; they're pretty small. What could have made these marks?

This is in central North Carolina. I've been assuming it's some sort of animal, but maybe I'm wrong about that. Even if it's not an animal, I can't figure out what could have caused it.

posted by radiomayonnaise to Grab Bag (9 answers total)

Raccoon
posted by DoubleLune at 10:39 AM on April 27, 2022

Too small for raccoon.

A good candidate is chipmunk.
posted by Miko at 10:56 AM on April 27, 2022 [1 favorite]

Concur, here is a photo of chipmunk tracks in the snow.
posted by kschang at 11:25 AM on April 27, 2022

It looks so much like a raccoon. Could it be a baby raccoon?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 11:34 AM on April 27, 2022 [4 favorites]

Best answer: It doesn’t look like a mammal track to me (not that I’m any kind of expert); I bet it’s something like a snail, although I know it looks kind of weird.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 12:36 PM on April 27, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: There’s something similar here and someone suggests it’s a slug's tongue-marks.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 12:39 PM on April 27, 2022 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I think that's exactly it, Bloxworth Snout! Snail radula trail pulls up lots of similar images. Thank you for solving this mystery!
posted by radiomayonnaise at 1:40 PM on April 27, 2022 [4 favorites]

Finding out that it was a snail is just so much cooler!
posted by xedrik at 4:33 PM on April 27, 2022 [4 favorites]

Uh, that doesn’t look anything like a raccoon print and is the wrong size anyway. I’d also guess slug or snail.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:36 PM on April 29, 2022