Coyote
The coyote is a species of canine also known as the American jackal, prairie wolf, and brush wolf. It is native to North America, and 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 but 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 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 that changes rapidly in tone and pitch.
Humans are the coyote's greatest threat, followed by cougars and gray wolves. While coyotes have never been known to mate with gray wolves in the wild, they do interbreed with eastern wolves and red wolves, producing "coywolf" hybrids. In the northeastern regions of North America, the eastern coyote is the result of various historical and recent matings with various types of wolves. Eastern wolves also still mate with gray wolves, providing an avenue for further genetic exchange across canid species. 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. Generally, adult coyotes 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 had traits consistent with albinism.
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, 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" and on the next page of his journal a wolf which he named Canis nubilus. Say described the coyote as:
Naming and etymology
The first published usage of the word "coyote" 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, 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 and as three-syllables, 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.
| Linguistic group or area | Indigenous name |
| Arikara | Stshirits pukatsh |
| Canadian French | Coyote |
| Chinook | Italipas |
| Chipewyan | Nu-ní-yĕ=̑ts!ế-lĕ |
| Cocopah | Ṭxpa Xṭpa |
| Northern Cree Plains Cree | ᒣᐢᒐᒑᑲᓂᐢ ᒣᐢᒐᒑᑲᓂᐢ |
| Creek | Yvhuce Yvhvlanuce |
| Dakota | Mica Micaksica |
| Flathead | Sinchlep |
| Hidatsa | Motsa |
| Hopi | Iisawu Isaw |
| Karuk | Pihnêefich |
| Klamath | Ko-ha-a |
| Mandan | Scheke |
| Mayan | Pek'i'cash |
| Mutsun | ma'yan wakSiS |
| Nez Perce | ʔiceyé•ye |
| Nahuatl | Coyōtl |
| Navajo | Ma'ii |
| Lakota | Mee-yah-slay'-cha-lah |
| Ojibwe | Wiisagi-ma'iingan |
| Omaha | Mikasi |
| Osage | ??͘??͘????? Šómįhkasi |
| Pawnee | Ckirihki |
| Piute | Eja-ah |
| Spanish | Coyote Perro de monte |
| Yakama | Telipa |
| Timbisha | Isa Isapaippü Itsappü |
| Wintu | Ćarawa Sedet |
| Nakota | Song-toke-cha |
| Yurok | Segep |
Evolution
Fossil record
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 in the southwestern US and Mexico. By the Pliocene, the larger Canis lepophagus appeared in the same region and by the early Pleistocene C.latrans was in existence. They proposed that the progression from Eucyon davisi to C.lepophagus to the coyote was linear evolution.C.latrans and C.aureus are closely related to C.edwardii, a species that appeared earliest spanning the mid-Blancan to the close of the Irvingtonian, and coyote remains indistinguishable from C. latrans were contemporaneous with C.edwardii in North America. Johnston describes C.lepophagus as having a more slender skull and skeleton than the modern coyote. Ronald Nowak found that the early populations had small, delicate, narrowly proportioned skulls that resemble small coyotes and appear to be ancestral to C. latrans.
C. lepophagus was similar in weight to modern coyotes, but had shorter limb bones that indicate a less cursorial lifestyle. The coyote represents a more primitive form of Canis than the gray wolf, as shown by its relatively small size and its comparatively narrow skull and jaws, which lack the grasping power necessary to hold the large prey in which wolves specialize. This is further corroborated by the coyote's sagittal crest, which is low or totally flattened, thus indicating a weaker bite than the wolves. The coyote, unlike the wolf, is not a specialized carnivore, as shown by the larger chewing surfaces on the molars, reflecting the species' relative dependence on vegetable matter. In these respects, the coyote resembles the fox-like progenitors of the genus more so than the wolf.
The oldest fossils that fall within the range of the modern coyote date to 0.74–0.85 Ma in Hamilton Cave, West Virginia; 0.73 Ma in Irvington, California; 0.35–0.48 Ma in Porcupine Cave, Colorado, and in Cumberland Cave, Pennsylvania. Modern coyotes arose 1,000 years after the Quaternary extinction event. Compared to their modern Holocene counterparts, Pleistocene coyotes were larger and more robust, likely in response to larger competitors and prey. Pleistocene coyotes were likely more specialized carnivores than their descendants, as their teeth were more adapted to shearing meat, showing fewer grinding surfaces suited for processing vegetation. Their reduction in size occurred within 1,000 years of the Quaternary extinction event, when their large prey died out. Furthermore, Pleistocene coyotes were unable to exploit the big-game hunting niche left vacant after the extinction of the dire wolf, as it was rapidly filled by gray wolves, which likely actively killed off the large coyotes, with natural selection favoring the modern gracile morph.