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COYOTE
Canis Latrans
The sound of the coyote's evening chorus was a memorable part of childhood summer camping in the magnificent Yosemite Valley. Coyote has a variety of vocalizations, but the most common are at dusk, nighttime, or dawn, with a series of barks and yelps followed by a prolonged howl and ending with short yaps, often in concert giving an eerie harmonic under a star filled sky. Here in the East, it is less common to hear these resourceful members of the canine family, but their presence is very much a part of modern urban life. Unlike the wolf and fox, the more the coyote is trapped, poisoned and shot, the more it seems to thrive at the edges of civilization. Coyotes are able to forage on a wide variety of food sources, including rabbits, mice, ground squirrels, pocket gophers and other small mammals, birds, frogs, toads, snakes, insects, many kinds of fruit, and carrion. The rich food sources of urban centers, including garbage dumps, apparently offer this canny opportunist a very good living, free of former predators such as Grizzly, Black bears, Mountain Lions, and wolves.
The coloring of this 20-40 pound canine is usually a pale brown, grizzled with gray, white, or black, with buff underparts; body and legs are long, the legs rusty or yellowish with a dark vertical line on the lower foreleg. From a distance, depending on what part of the country you are in, a gray, whitish, or a very pale yellow appearance. At night they appear ghostly, especially since they move so silently. The ears, usually darker than the rest of the coat, are prominent (able to hear a mouse moving under the snow) and the tail is carried down when running, unlike the wolf which carries its tail horizontally when running. Coyote is the best runner of the canids; leaping 14' and cruising at 25-30 mph, reaching up to 40 mph. It has been said that migrating coyotes can hold a pace of 40 mph for up to eight hours, and may travel distances up to 400 miles.
Favored habitat for Coyote is open plains in the West, and brushy areas in the East. Often pairing for life, a coyote pair raises one litter a year, born in the spring. Riverbanks are favored den sites, as well as well-drained slopes, sides of canyons or gulches. Within six to seven weeks, the young pups will begin to run with their parents. Wolves stay together in close family groups, but generally the coyote family only stays together until late fall. Size and coloring vary regionally also, smaller in the warmer southern climates and larger in the colder northern areas. The range of the coyote is from Eastern Alaska, Northern and Western Canada, all of the Western United States, and east to at least New England, northern New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, and Louisiana. There are additional isolated records of Coyotes all over the East. An individual coyote's normal range is about six miles, depending on whether the hunting is good or poor.
The coyote's scientific name means "barking dog", its common name comes from coyotl, the term used by Mexico's Nahuatl Indians.
Sources:
The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mammals, by John O. Whitaker, Jr.
Tom Brown's Field Guide to Nature Observation and Tracking, by Tom Brown
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