Animal · United States, Canada, Mexico
Coyote
Canis latrans — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The coyote is a slim wild dog of North America, smaller than a wolf, with big ears, a narrow muzzle and a bushy black-tipped tail. It eats almost anything it can catch, from mice to grasshoppers to windfall fruit. Its howling chorus has earned it the nickname song dog.
Picture credit: Juan Carlos Fonseca Mata (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Henry (CC BY 2.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the coyote live?
Home: Prairies, forests, deserts and the edges of cities in North America.
In the wild it lives in these countries: the United States, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama.
Conservation status from the IUCN: not in danger.
The short profile
Fully grown: about 1 to 1.35 m long including the tail. It weighs about 13 kilograms. On the menu: both plants and meat.
The story behind it
Two hundred years ago the coyote lived mainly in the open country of western North America. Today it is found from Alaska down to Panama, and it turns up in city parks, on golf courses and in back alleys. Wolves used to keep coyotes out of the eastern forests; when the wolves were gone, the coyotes moved in. A pair usually stays together for years and raises about six pups in a den, often an old badger or groundhog burrow that they dig out wider. The parents carry food back to the den, and by autumn the young are hunting for themselves. Coyotes catch mice and voles with a high pounce, front feet first, and they also eat rabbits, birds, insects, berries and whatever people leave lying around. A chorus of two coyotes can sound like a dozen, because each animal slides its pitch up and down and the notes overlap. When it has to, a coyote can run at about 65 km/h.
Find it on the globe
Coyote is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
Why do coyotes howl at night?
Howling tells the rest of the family where everyone is and warns strangers to keep off the territory. Partners often answer each other, and the wobbling notes make two animals sound like a whole crowd.
Are coyotes dangerous to people?
Attacks on people are very rare, and a coyote that notices you will usually trot away. Trouble starts when food is left out, so wildlife services ask people never to feed them.
How can a coyote live in a city?
It hunts rats, mice and rabbits in parks and along railway lines, and it moves mostly after dark. Some city coyotes hold the same territory for years without most people ever noticing.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
Last checked: