The raccoon dog isn’t a raccoon at all — it’s a canid, more closely related to foxes. It’s the only member of the dog family that hibernates and one of the few to use communal latrines, where it leaves behind smelly “messages” about its diet, health, and breeding status for other raccoon dogs to sniff out.

Owston's civet is a cryptic creature from the Annamite Mountains, straddling the border of Vietnam and Laos. With its skinny snout, it sniffs and searches through leaf litter for its favourite food: earthworms.

The Iriomote cat occupies the smallest habitat of any wild cat on Earth — found only on Japan's southern Island of Iriomote — with its current population estimated to be around 100 individuals.