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I met this animal yesterday while walking along a small river in Yokohama, Japan. It came out of the bushes some 5 meters away from me, but while I was launching the camera app on my smartphone, it already went away into a fenced area where I couldn't follow and was quite far, so these are the best pictures I could take. It seemed to have something wrong with it's fur (either molting or sick). Could be a japanese raccoon dog (a.k.a. tanuki), although the images I found on Google don't look much like it to my untrained eye (maybe because of the fur), or some kind of a fox (looked even less likely). Tried asking locals, but they tend not to know anything about animals, unless those animals are either dogs, cats or foods. So, what is this? enter image description here EDIT: the size is hard to describe, I would say, it was a bit bigger than a big domestic cat, and also had different proportions - longer body, neck and legs.

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    $\begingroup$ Welcome to Biology.SE! For identification questions please edit your post to include an estimate for the size of this mammal. A description of what you could observe about its coat/skin might also help. ——— You may also want to take the tour and then go through the help pages starting with How to Ask questions effectively on this site. Thanks! 😊 $\endgroup$
    – tyersome
    Jan 15, 2020 at 17:16

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I've been able to narrow it down to 3 species in Musteloidea, the weasel superfamily, but I think you observed a Tanuki that was suffering from scabies.

1) Tanuki / Japanese raccoon dog - 'Tanuki' - (Nyctereutes procyonoides viverrinus). Visually similar to what you observed. The feet and face in particular seems to fit with a tanuki. Tanuki are often observed in urban areas in Japan and have been increasing in recent years. There are frequent reports of tanuki with scabies that have missing fur and a similar appearance: (Google search for "tanuki" and "scabies": https://www.google.com/search?q=%E7%96%A5%E7%99%AC%E3%82%BF%E3%83%8C%E3%82%AD

2) Common raccoon - 'Araiguma' - (Procyon lotor) Since they were introduced in 1962 as pets, there are some wild populations in Japan, including in Kanagawa prefecture where you observed the animal.

3) Japanese badger - 'Anaguma' - (Meles anakuma) Another possibility but I think it does not fit your observation.

There are a few other species in this superfamily but I think it is safe to exclude them due to a lack of visual similarity.

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