Sjupp

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Sjupp was a pet raccoon owned by Adolf Fredrik and later by the Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus. He lived in the Royal Gardens in Stockholm until 1746, then in Linnaeus’s Linnaean Garden in Uppsala until his death. Sjupp enjoyed eggs, almonds, raisins, cakes, sugar and various fruits, and he would sometimes grab treats from Linnaeus’s students’ pockets. He hated sour foods like vinegar. He was friendly to people he knew, but could be cruel to those he disliked. There was even a moment when Sjupp would scream whenever he smelled Linnaeus’s gardener. He died in a fight with a dog. Linnaeus dissected his body to learn more about raccoons, and some of what he observed helped describe the raccoon in Systema Naturae.