PHOTOS: Pizza Raccoon climbs Central Park tree, eats Sicilian slice

Rats are not the only New York City creatures who love a good piece of pizza.

This week, a local woman witnessed what is now being called Pizza Raccoon in Central Park.

Anya Schiffrin, the director of Columbia University’s School of International Affairs’ media program, was taking her usual stroll through Central Park with a friend just before 6 p.m. on Tuesday when she spotted the hungry animal.

The pair was leaving the Central Park Conservancy as the raccoon dove into a trash can and started eating what appeared to be a Sicilian slice, according to Schiffrin. It then starred down the women before climbing to top of a tree to finish eating its pizza.

The raccoon didn’t “miss a beat” the entire time, never dropping the slice, Schiffrin noticed.

“How often do you see a raccoon eating pizza? I’m a city girl,” she said.

Though the sighting surprised Schiffrin, she immediately thought of Pizza Rat, a fellow Italian food-loving animal that went viral last month when it was captured on video dragging a slice down the stairs of a Manhattan subway station.

Schiffrin knew she had to take photos of the raccoon.

“He was a lot cuter than Pizza Rat and was obviously a pizza lover,” she said.