Coyotes

The coyote (''Canis latrans''), also known as the American jackal, prairie wolf, or brush wolf, is a species of canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the gray wolf, and slightly smaller than the closely related eastern wolf and red wolf. It fills much of the same ecological niche as the golden jackal does in Eurasia; however, the coyote is generally larger.

The coyote is listed as least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, due to its wide distribution and abundance throughout North America. The species is versatile, able to adapt to and expand into environments modified by humans; urban coyotes are common in many cities. The coyote was sighted in eastern Panama (across the Panama Canal from their home range) for the first time in 2013.

The coyote has 19 recognized subspecies. The average male weighs and the average female . Their fur color is predominantly light gray and red or fulvous interspersed with black and white, though it varies somewhat with geography. It is highly flexible in social organization, living either in a family unit or in loosely knit packs of unrelated individuals. Primarily carnivorous, its diet consists mainly of deer, rabbits, hares, rodents, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates, though it may also eat fruits and vegetables on occasion. Its characteristic vocalization is a howl made by solitary individuals. Humans are the coyote's greatest threat, followed by cougars and gray wolves. Despite predation by gray wolves, coyotes sometimes mate with them, and with eastern, or red wolves, producing "coywolf" hybrids. In the northeastern regions of North America, the eastern coyote (a larger subspecies, though still smaller than wolves) is the result of various historical and recent matings with various types of wolves. Genetic studies show that most North American wolves contain some level of coyote DNA.

The coyote is a prominent character in Native American folklore, mainly in Aridoamerica, usually depicted as a trickster that alternately assumes the form of an actual coyote or a man. As with other trickster figures, the coyote uses deception and humor to rebel against social conventions. The animal was especially respected in Mesoamerican cosmology as a symbol of military might. After the European colonization of the Americas, it was seen in Anglo-American culture as a cowardly and untrustworthy animal. Unlike wolves, which have seen their public image improve, attitudes towards the coyote remain largely negative.

Description

Coyote males average in weight, while females average , though size varies geographically. Northern subspecies, which average , tend to grow larger than the southern subspecies of Mexico, which average . Total length ranges on average from ; comprising a tail length of , with females being shorter in both body length and height. The largest coyote on record was a male killed near Afton, Wyoming, on November19, 1937, which measured from nose to tail, and weighed . Scent glands are located at the upper side of the base of the tail and are a bluish-black color.

The color and texture of the coyote's fur vary somewhat geographically. The hair's predominant color is light gray and red or fulvous, interspersed around the body with black and white. Coyotes living at high elevations tend to have more black and gray shades than their desert-dwelling counterparts, which are more fulvous or whitish-gray. The coyote's fur consists of short, soft underfur and long, coarse guard hairs. The fur of northern subspecies is longer and denser than in southern forms, with the fur of some Mexican and Central American forms being almost hispid (bristly). Generally, adult coyotes (including coywolf hybrids) have a sable coat color, dark neonatal coat color, bushy tail with an active supracaudal gland, and a white facial mask. Albinism is extremely rare in coyotes. Out of a total of 750,000 coyotes killed by federal and cooperative hunters between March 1938 and June 1945, only two were albinos.

The coyote is typically smaller than the gray wolf, but has longer ears and a relatively larger braincase, as well as a thinner frame, face, and muzzle. The scent glands are smaller than the gray wolf's, but are the same color. Its fur color variation is much less varied than that of a wolf. The coyote also carries its tail downwards when running or walking, rather than horizontally as the wolf does.

Coyote tracks can be distinguished from those of dogs by their more elongated, less rounded shape. Unlike dogs, the upper canines of coyotes extend past the mental foramina.

Taxonomy and evolution

History

At the time of the European colonization of the Americas, coyotes were largely confined to open plains and arid regions of the western half of the continent. In early post-Columbian historical records, determining whether the writer is describing coyotes or wolves is often difficult. One record from 1750 in Kaskaskia, Illinois, written by a local priest, noted that the "wolves" encountered there were smaller and less daring than European wolves. Another account from the early 1800s in Edwards County, Illinois mentioned wolves howling at night, though these were likely coyotes. This species was encountered several times during the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806), though it was already well known to European traders on the upper Missouri. Meriwether Lewis, writing on 5 May 1805, in northeastern Montana, described the coyote in these terms:

The coyote was first scientifically described by naturalist Thomas Say in September 1819, on the site of Lewis and Clark's Council Bluffs, up the Missouri River from the mouth of the Platte during a government-sponsored expedition with Major Stephen Long. He had the first edition of the Lewis and Clark journals in hand, which contained Biddle's edited version of Lewis's observations dated 5 May 1805. His account was published in 1823. Say was the first person to document the difference between a "''prairie wolf''" (coyote) and on the next page of his journal a wolf which he named ''Canis nubilus'' ( Great Plains wolf). Say described the coyote as:

Naming and etymology

The first published usage of the word "coyote" (which is a Spanish borrowing of its Nahuatl name ''coyōtl'' ) comes from the historian Francisco Javier Clavijero's ''Historia de México'' in 1780. The first time it was used in English occurred in William Bullock's ''Six months' residence and travels in Mexico'' (1824), where it is variously transcribed as ''cayjotte'' and ''cocyotie''. The word's spelling was standardized as "coyote" by the 1880s.

The English pronunciation is heard both as a two-syllable word (with the final "e" silent) and as three-syllables (with the final "e" pronounced), with a tendency for the three-syllable pronunciation in eastern states and near the Mexican border, and outside the United States, with two syllables in western and central states.

Alternative English names for the coyote include "prairie wolf", "brush wolf", "cased wolf", "little wolf" and "American jackal". Its binomial name ''Canis latrans'' translates to "barking dog", a reference to the many vocalizations they produce.

Evolution

Fossil record

Xiaoming Wang and Richard H. Tedford, one of the foremost authorities on carnivore evolution, proposed that the genus ''Canis'' was the descendant of the coyote-like '' Eucyon davisi'' and its remains first appeared in the Miocene 6million years ago (Mya) in the southwestern US and Mexico. By the Pliocene

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases