Coyote Heading Home
Color-colour digital painting by J. McCombie.
In a rush to get home to the woods in the midday sun, the adult coyote crosses the hayfield where the alfafa...
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Color-colour digital painting by J. McCombie.
In a rush to get home to the woods in the midday sun, the adult coyote crosses the hayfield where the alfafa has begun to regrow after the first cutting and bales were removed by the farmer. He has spent his morning in the north hayfield fishing out mice to eat from under the remaining windrows.
The coyote (Canis latrans) is a canid native to North America. It is a smaller, more basal animal than its close relative, the gray wolf, being roughly the North American equivalent to the old world golden jackal, though it is larger and more predatory in nature. It is listed as "least concern" by the IUCN, on account of its wide distribution and abundance throughout North America, Mexico and into Central America. It is a highly versatile species, whose range has expanded amidst human environmental modification. This expansion is ongoing, and it may one day reach South America, as shown by the animal's presence beyond the Panama Canal in 2013. As of 2005, 19 subspecies are recognized.
The coyote is one of the seven representatives of the Canidae family found in Canada. Other members of the family are the wolf, red fox, arctic fox, grey fox, swift fox, and dog.
The ancestors of the coyote diverged from the gray wolf, 1-2 million years ago, arising in North America during the Middle Pleistocene. It is highly flexible in social organization, living either in nuclear families or in loosely-knit packs of unrelated individuals. It has a varied diet consisting primarily of animal matter, including ungulates, lagomorphs, rodents, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates, though it may also eat fruit and vegetable matter on occasion. It is a very vocal animal, whose most iconic sound consists of a howl emitted by solitary individuals. Other than humans, cougars and gray wolves are the coyote's only serious enemies. Nevertheless, coyotes have on occasion mated with the latter species, producing hybrids colloquially called "coywolves".
The color and texture of the coyote's fur varies somewhat geographically. The hair's predominant color is light gray and red or fulvous, interspersed around the body with black and white. Coyotes living on high elevations tend to have more black and gray shades than their desert-dwelling counterparts, which are more fulvous or whitish-gray.
The coyote is a prominent character in Native American folklore, usually depicted as a trickster who alternately assumes the form of an actual coyote or a man. As with other trickster figures, the coyote acts as a picaresque hero which rebels against social convention through deception and humor. After the European colonization of the Americas, it was reviled in Anglo-American culture as a cowardly and untrustworthy animal. Unlike the gray wolf, which has undergone a radical improvement of its public image, cultural attitudes towards the coyote remain largely negative.
Alternative English names for the coyote include "prairie wolf", "brush wolf", "cased wolf", "little wolf" and "American jackal".
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In a rush to get home to the woods in the midday sun, the adult coyote crosses the hayfield where the alfafa has begun to regrow after the first cutting and bales were removed by the farmer. He has spent his morning in the north hayfield fishing out mice to eat from under the remaining windrows.
The coyote (Canis latrans) is a canid native to North America. It is a smaller, more basal animal than its close relative, the gray wolf, being roughly the North American equivalent to the old world golden jackal, though it is larger and more predatory in nature. It is listed as "least concern" by the IUCN, on account of its wide distribution and abundance throughout North America, Mexico and into Central America. It is a highly versatile species, whose range has expanded amidst human environmental modification. This expansion is ongoing, and it may one day reach South America, as shown by the animal's presence beyond the Panama Canal in 2013. As of 2005, 19 subspecies are recognized.
The coyote is one of the seven representatives of the Canidae family found in Canada. Other members of the family are the wolf, red fox, arctic fox, grey fox, swift fox, and dog.
The ancestors of the coyote diverged from the gray wolf, 1-2 million years ago, arising in North America during the Middle Pleistocene. It is highly flexible in social organization, living either in nuclear families or in loosely-knit packs of unrelated individuals. It has a varied diet consisting primarily of animal matter, including ungulates, lagomorphs, rodents, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates, though it may also eat fruit and vegetable matter on occasion. It is a very vocal animal, whose most iconic sound consists of a howl emitted by solitary individuals. Other than humans, cougars and gray wolves are the coyote's only serious enemies. Nevertheless, coyotes have on occasion mated with the latter species, producing hybrids colloquially called "coywolves".
The color and texture of the coyote's fur varies somewhat geographically. The hair's predominant color is light gray and red or fulvous, interspersed around the body with black and white. Coyotes living on high elevations tend to have more black and gray shades than their desert-dwelling counterparts, which are more fulvous or whitish-gray.
The coyote is a prominent character in Native American folklore, usually depicted as a trickster who alternately assumes the form of an actual coyote or a man. As with other trickster figures, the coyote acts as a picaresque hero which rebels against social convention through deception and humor. After the European colonization of the Americas, it was reviled in Anglo-American culture as a cowardly and untrustworthy animal. Unlike the gray wolf, which has undergone a radical improvement of its public image, cultural attitudes towards the coyote remain largely negative.
Alternative English names for the coyote include "prairie wolf", "brush wolf", "cased wolf", "little wolf" and "American jackal".
Read less
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