No matter how complex we make our garbage bins, raccoons always seem to find a way to get into them — and it turns out that they may be having fun doing it, too.

A new study investigating raccoons’ puzzle-solving abilities found that the critters continued exploring puzzle boxes long after they’d retrieved the treats inside, exhibiting what scientists refer to as “information foraging” behaviour.

The research was led by researchers at the University of British Columbia and published in Animal Behaviour.

For their study, the researchers created a custom puzzle box made up of latches, knobs, and sliding doors — offering their raccoon test subjects multiple ways to get in. The different entryways to the box were categorized as either easy, medium, or hard, and each box was equipped with three solutions. A single marshmallow was placed inside the box, and the raccoons were given 20 minutes to get to the treat.

Interestingly, the researchers found that even after they retrieved the marshmallows, the raccoons continued investigating the boxes’ opening mechanisms. They tended to explore the boxes more broadly when the solutions were easy, but were still observed to investigate even the hardest puzzle solutions.

“We weren’t expecting them to open all three solutions in a single trial,” said Hannah Griebling, a graduate student at UBC and first author on the study, in a news release.

“They kept problem solving even when there was no marshmallow at the end.”

Almost anyone living in an urban centre in Canada will be familiar with raccoons and their perseverance when it comes to sniffing out snacks, but the results of this study shed new light on the furry creatures, painting them as curious animals that are also motivated by information gathering and learning.

These results also help explain how “trash pandas”, as they’re sometimes affectionately known, have been able to thrive in our cities. By prioritizing information gathering behaviour, raccoons are equipped to deal with even the most complicated garbage bins we have to offer.

“This ability to flexibly problem-solve and optimize information foraging may be beneficial for this flourishing urban mammal,” the authors explained.