Coati

Coatis range from Arizona’s sky islands to the Amazon Basin. With long, pointed snouts and ringed tails, they resemble mashups of raccoons and anteaters. Sharp claws help them climb trees to escape jaguars or raid bird nests, yet they spend most of their time on the ground overturning leaves for beetles, fruit, and eggs. Their tails act like flags so group members can follow one another through tall grass.

Female coatis and youngsters live in bands of up to 30 individuals. Bands chatter constantly with squeaks and trills, maintaining contact even when spread across a hillside. At night they sleep together in the branches of strangler figs or cecropia trees, safe from most predators. Adult males, called “solitaries,” join bands only during mating season, which leads to the birth of kits timed with fruiting peaks.

Coatis are opportunistic omnivores. They use flexible snouts to sniff out buried insects, dig with curved claws, and wash food in streams much like raccoons. When wild guavas ripen, bands gather to feast and inadvertently scatter seeds far from the parent tree. Their strong sense of smell also leads them to farmers’ cornfields and chicken coops, causing occasional conflicts. In cities, coatis raid trash cans and picnic tables if people leave food unsecured.

Habitat loss, hunting, and road traffic threaten coatis in some regions, while invasive populations in parts of Europe and Florida can disrupt local ecosystems. Conservation efforts focus on maintaining forest corridors, educating tourists not to feed wild coatis, and installing wildlife crossings where highways cut through protected areas. Researchers track coatis with GPS collars to learn how they coexist alongside people and help disperse seeds in recovering forests.