Coati

• 1. Introduction

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  The coati takes its name from the Tupian languages of Brazil, where the full form, coatimundi, means lone coati. That is a strange label for an animal that spends so much of its life in noisy company. The coati is a slender-snouted mammal of the raccoon family, Procyonidae, native to South America, Central America, Mexico and the Southwestern United States. In Belize, people call it the quash. How did a creature named for solitude end up travelling in crowds? Which coatis are actually alone, and why? And what does an animal do with a nose that long and that flexible?

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• 2. Snout, Tail and Ankles

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  Between 33 and 69 centimetres is the length of an adult coati from head to the base of the tail, and the tail can be just as long as the body. Coatis stand about 30 centimetres at the shoulder and weigh between 2 and 8 kilograms, roughly the size of a large house cat. Those figures describe the white-nosed and South American coatis, while the two mountain species are smaller. Males can grow almost twice as large as females, and they carry large, sharp canine teeth.

  Up to 60 degrees in any direction is how far a coati can rotate its long, slightly upturned snout. The pig-like shape explains one nickname, the hog-nosed raccoon. Coatis push objects with the snout and use it to rub parts of their own bodies. White markings circle the eyes and also appear on the ears and the snout, set against small ears and dark feet.

  A turn of more than 180 degrees is possible at the coati's ankle, as it is in raccoons and other procyonids. That flexibility lets a coati climb down a tree head first. The paws look like those of bears and raccoons, and the animal walks on the soles of its feet, as bears and humans do. The claws cannot be pulled back. With strong limbs for climbing and digging, coatis have earned a reputation for intelligence, like the raccoon. They like to rest high up, in places such as the rainforest canopy, in crudely built sleeping nests.

  Rings mark the long brown tail of most coatis, and the coat itself is light brown or black with paler underparts. The rings may be sharply defined, as on a raccoon, or very faint. They run all the way around the tail, which is not true of ring-tailed cats or cacomistles. The tail cannot grip branches the way the kinkajou's can, though its tip can twitch a little on its own, as a cat's does. Mostly it serves for balance and for signalling. In tall vegetation, an upright tail works as a marker that keeps a troop from losing track of its members.

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• 3. Band and Breeding

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  Between four and 25 individuals make up the loosely organised, noisy bands in which female coatis of the genus Nasua travel. Young males stay with them until the age of two. Little is known about the two mountain species, so what follows describes Nasua. The band forages with its offspring, sometimes on the ground and sometimes in the forest canopy. Unlike most of the raccoon family, coatis are mostly active by day, though some show cathemeral behaviour, meaning activity spread across day and night.

  After their second birthday, males become solitary. Part of the reason is their own temperament, and part is the collective aggression of the females. Such lone adult males fit the old Tupian name well enough. A male rejoins the females only during the breeding season.

  The rainy season sets the calendar for breeding, because it brings the greatest supply of food, especially fruit. In some areas the season runs from January to March, and in others from October to February. Near its start, a single adult male is accepted into the band of females and juveniles. The result is a polygynous mating system, with one male and several females. His welcome is short.

  Pregnant females leave the group to build a nest in a tree or a rocky niche. After a gestation of about 11 weeks, each gives birth to a litter of three to seven kits. About six weeks later, mother and young return to the band. Females reach sexual maturity at two years of age and males at three. That means a male has already been living alone for a year before he is old enough to father kits.

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• 4. Chirps and Postures

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  Chirping, snorting and grunting are the three kinds of sound coatis use to announce their moods. Different chirps carry different messages. One expresses joy during social grooming, another offers appeasement after a fight, and a third signals irritation or anger.

  A snort while digging, paired with an upright tail, tells other coatis that the food or the ground belongs to the digger. Body language adds simple messages. A coati that tucks its nose between its front paws is showing submission. One that lowers its head, bares its teeth and jumps at an enemy is signalling aggression.

  Looks, voices and smells all help coatis tell each other apart. Special musk glands on the neck and belly make each animal's scent stronger. Coatis also rub secretions from the preputial gland on objects around their home ranges. They have no anal glands.

  In Panama, coatis rub resin from Trattinnickia aspera trees, a member of the Burseraceae family, into their own fur and into the fur of other troop members. Researchers have proposed that the resin works as an insect repellent, as a fungicide, or as a form of scent-marking. Which of the three is correct remains unsettled.

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• 5. Foraging and Range

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  Tarantulas are among the invertebrates that coatis eat. Coatis are omnivores, and their diet consists mainly of ground litter, invertebrates and fruit. They also take small vertebrates such as lizards, rodents and small birds. Birds' eggs are on the menu too, and so are crocodile eggs. Their sharp sense of smell guides the snout, and the paws then help it dig up buried invertebrates, much as a hog would.

  From southern Arizona, New Mexico and Texas all the way to northern Uruguay stretches the coati's range. Within it, the animals occupy hot, arid country, humid Amazonian rainforest and cold Andean mountain slopes. They also live in grasslands and bushy areas.

  In Cumbria, in the United Kingdom, around 10 coatis are thought to have formed a breeding population. Back in the animals' native range, the numbers are much harder to pin down.

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• 6. Predators and Threats

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  A dog or a jaguar that tries to seize a coati meets strong jaws, sharp canine teeth and fast scratching paws. The coati's hide is tough and firmly attached to the muscle beneath, which makes the smaller animal very hard to grip. When provoked, coatis can be fierce fighters.

  Jaguarundis, anacondas, pumas, maned wolves, boa constrictors, foxes, tayras and ocelots all appear on the list of coati predators. So do large raptors, including ornate hawk-eagles, black-and-chestnut eagles and harpy eagles. In Colombia, white-faced capuchin monkeys hunt coati pups.

  In the wild, coatis can live up to seven years. In Central and South America they face environmental destruction and unregulated hunting. Scientifically sound population studies are lacking, so the true number of coatis, and the ecological problems affecting them, could be underestimated.

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• 7. Family Tree

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  Linnaeus named two of the four recognised coati species in 1766. The white-nosed coati, Nasua narica, lives in the Southwestern United States, Mexico, Central America and Colombia. The South American coati, Nasua nasua, lives across South America. The other two belong to the genus Nasuella and are known as mountain coatis. The eastern mountain coati, Nasuella meridensis, was described by Thomas in 1901 and lives in Venezuela. The western mountain coati, Nasuella olivacea, was described by Gray in 1865 and lives in Colombia and Ecuador.

  Cozumel Island once had a coati recognised as a species of its own. The vast majority of recent authorities now treat it as a subspecies, Nasua narica nelsoni, of the white-nosed coati.

  Genetic evidence from cytochrome b sequences suggests that Nasuella should be merged into Nasua, because Nasua would otherwise be paraphyletic, meaning it would leave out some of its own descendants. Other genetic studies place the olingos, genus Bassaricyon, as the coatis' closest relatives. The two lineages are thought to have split about 10.2 million years ago.

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• 8. Coatis as Pets

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  Five groups of procyonids are commonly kept as pets in parts of North, Central and South America. Coatis are one, alongside common and crab-eating raccoons, the kinkajou, the ring-tailed cat and the cacomistle. White-nosed and South American coatis are common in captivity. Mountain coatis are extremely rare there.

  A pet dog is a poor model for what living with a coati is like. Coatis can be wild and sometimes hard to control or train. Ideally, one would have a spacious outdoor enclosure plus a coati-proofed room in the house or another climate-controlled space. A coati allowed to roam the house needs careful watching.

  Toilet training is possible. Even an untrained coati tends to pick a latrine area, and a litter pan can be placed there, as owners do for ferrets, pet skunks, rabbits and rodents. Coatis generally need both dog and cat vaccines against distemper and many other diseases, plus an inactivated rabies vaccine. They can be spayed or neutered, for the same reasons as cats and dogs.

  In captivity, the average lifespan is about 14 years. Some coatis live into their late teens, so a young pet can mean a commitment of many years.

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