Not all heroes wear capes, but most of them do wear masks. Even raccoons. Yesterday (June 12), a daredevil raccoon in St. Paul, Minnesota, captivated the Internet by climbing 23 stories up a vertical concrete wall. The raccoon, now known as MPR raccoon in honor of the Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) employees who spotted the critter scaling a nearby skyscraper, became an instant social media star as viewers around the world rooted for its safe return to the ground. [The 5 Smartest Non-Primates on the Planet] See more The raccoon rested on various window ledges during its daring climb (resulting in some amazing photos) and ultimately reached the building's roof this morning around 3 a.m. local time. At the end of the day, MPR raccoon had spent nearly 20 hours scaling the concrete building — alone, afraid and totally bereft of food and water. The raccoon has been safely captured, but many questions remain. Why would a raccoon climb 23 stories straight up instead of climbing down? And how is this even possible? According to Minnesota Department of Natural Resources employee Bryan Lueth, it may be a simple mix of instinct and anatomy. "If I had to come up with a scenario," Lueth told MPR, "I would say it was maybe holed up in an alley … ran out onto the sidewalk, and then there's all these people around. It's like 'Ah!' The natural instinct is to climb." See more Raccoons are notoriously skilled climbers. Because many raccoons make their dens near populated human settlements where garbage is plentiful, they're used to scurrying up trees, chimneys and buildings to stay out of harm's way, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFD) wrote on its website. Nature has equipped raccoons well for this job. Sharp, nonretractable nails cap each of their long fingers and toes, and are perfect for digging into craggy surfaces like trees and cliffs. Unlike your house cat, raccoons can even rotate their back paws 180 degrees to climb down surfaces headfirst, the WDFD wrote. This means raccoons can, and will, climb pretty much anything they can get their paws around — your car, your garbage can or even your modest metropolitan skyscraper. One famous 1907 study on raccoon intelligence marveled at the animal's ability to climb the bare steam pipes in the laboratory "with as much ease as though they were the trees of the forest." (The study also found that raccoons are ticklish … Science was different back then.) "Digging into tree bark is certainly a little bit easier than hard stone," Lueth said, "but there must've been enough cracks or crevices or textures where [MPR raccoon] could get a grip [on the building]." While some are hailing MPR raccoon as the hero Gotham City deserves, it seems the critter may have just been raccooning the only way raccoons know how. And that's good enough for us. See more Originally published on Live Science.<doc-sep>The building-scaling raccoon in Minnesota who ascended to impressive heights of internet stardom has been rescued. But not before it amassed a huge following. MPRraccoon — as the raccoon is now known on Twitter — captured widespread attention as people online followed its adventurous heroics when it climbed a 25-story building in St. Paul, Minn. Naturally, people drew superhero comparisons as they took to Twitter to urge the furry adrenaline seeker on. That’s because an animal this plucky is the only drama worth watching. As we all shared the thrill, the raccoon’s travails were immortalized in fan art, and people bonded to the raccoon as they shared experiences of their own when it comes to losing our way. It all started because the raccoon was stranded on a different building nearby on Monday, according to Minnesota Public Radio. And the first times that the St. Paul Fire Department and building workers tried to rescue it with a makeshift ladder did not pan out. In fact, it wasn’t until late Tuesday night that the raccoon began to make its way down from the seventeenth floor slowly. Relive the tale of unbridled determination, boundless ego, and 2018 stunting in the video above. Thankfully, blessedly, the raccoon is safe. A reporter and the building authorities were kind enough to live-tweet the rescue. Get The Brief. Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. Please enter a valid email address. * The request timed out and you did not successfully sign up. Please attempt to sign up again. Sign Up Now An unexpected error has occurred with your sign up. Please try again later. Check the box if you do not wish to receive promotional offers via email from TIME. You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Thank you! For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder. Contact us at letters@time.com.<doc-sep>Their thoughts raced. Who will rescue it? Will it fall? It showed up around 3 p.m. and started pacing on a thin window ledge outside Ms. Donnelly-Coyne’s office. “He just seemed sweet and cute and very mellow,” she said in an interview on Wednesday. Breaking out a window or sending down window cleaners would have been too risky, Ms. Donnelly-Coyne said, so officials baited live traps with cat food and placed them on the roof. They hoped the smell would lure the animal up another two floors. Ms. Donnelly-Coyne stayed in the office until 9 p.m., taking breaks from her work to check on the raccoon. When she left, she said, the animal was curled up sleeping. “All they could do was put enough stinky food up there to encourage him to go up the last two floors,” she said. “We were all kind of worried he might be too tired to do so but thankfully the little guy kept going.” The raccoon awoke around 10:30 p.m. and apparently had a change of heart. It started to descend, down to the 18th floor and then the 17th, before stopping on another ledge. A photographer at Minnesota Public Radio zoomed in and saw the raccoon peering over the ledge. Maybe it saw the cheering crowd below. Maybe it thought the descent was too far. Either way, around 2 a.m. on Wednesday, it began another climb. It surpassed the 18th floor and then 19th and kept going and going. Around 2:45 a.m., according to Mr. Nelson, it scaled the top and hopped onto the roof. It also found the cat food inside the trap.<doc-sep>In the early evening, the raccoon set up shop on the 23rd floor. By then, Twitter users were brainstorming ways to rescue it; a man was attempting to fly a drone toward it; and the Star-Tribune had written an explainer detailing how raccoon claws allow the animals to scale buildings.<doc-sep>
The moment that the MPR Raccoon triumphantly reached the top of St. Paul’s UBS Tower at around 2:50am local time in Minnesota Gif : KARE 11 The MPR Raccoon has safely made it to the roof. And if you have no idea what I’m talking about, you missed quite a day on Twitter yesterday. Twitter users were captivated yesterday while watching the perilous journey of a small raccoon as it scaled a 23-story office tower in St. Paul, Minnesota. Local reporters at Minnesota Public Radio dubbed it the #MPRraccoon and many people went to bed last night unsure of the little critter’s fate. And while we’re still waiting on word about whether animal control has successfully captured it, at least the poor raccoon isn’t pulling any more Spider-Man hijinks. Or Mission Impossible hijinks, as it were. Update: MPR Raccoon is safe and has been captured on the roof! The raccoon was first spotted on Monday in downtown St. Paul near the Town Square building just a couple of stories up. On Tuesday, maintenance workers tried to coax it down, but the raccoon became frightened and started scaling the side of the nearby UBS Tower. Office workers in the UBS building started posting photos on Twitter to provide updates as they saw the raccoon scale the skyscraper. The animal was clearly hungry and tired, but kept climbing anyway. By evening, the journey of the MPR raccoon had become an internet sensation with write-ups around the globe. Social media users had become heavily invested in the fate of this little guy. Local TV news station KARE11 in Minnesota started streaming the raccoon’s movements and MPR was constantly updating its story throughout the day on Twitter and Facebook. By the time it had reached the 23rd floor, people weren’t sure if it was going to make it to the roof. As MPR’s Tim Nelson reports, animal control officers put a live trap on the roof with aromatic food so that once it made its way up there it could be captured and safely brought down to the ground. As you can see from the livestream video by local TV news station KARE 11, MPR Raccoon reached the top of the building at around 2:50am local time in Minnesota. But we’re still waiting for any word on what condition the raccoon might be in. The raccoon gave people something to root for, but it sure was a perilous journey. If something bad happened to that raccoon now I think we’d all just have to crawl back into bed for the day. We’ll update this post when we know more from St. Paul Animal Control. [MPR and KARE 11] Update, 8:45am: UBS Plaza just tweeted a photo of MPR Raccoon! The little guy is safe and will be picked up by Wildlife Management! What a relief! Update, 9:35am: Apparently the raccoon is still on top of the roof, but is eating and will reportedly be released “somewhere safe” soon. Update, 11:21am: MPR reporter Tim Nelson has some more updates from UBS Tower: