coyote

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coyote
Coyote, Yosemite National Park

Coyote, Yosemite National Park

Systematics
Order : Predators (Carnivora)
Subordination : Canine (Caniformia)
Family : Dogs (Canidae)
Tribe : Real dogs (Canini)
Genre : Wolf and jackal species ( Canis )
Type : coyote
Scientific name
Canis latrans
Say , 1823
Distribution map - The regions in which the coyote is found today are shown in green.
Coyote in Death Valley ( California )
Running coyote
Seven coyote pups
Coyote in Northern Canada

The coyote ( Canis latrans , Coyote ; from Aztek. Cóyotl "mixed breed"), also known as the North American prairie wolf or steppe wolf , belongs to the family of dogs (Canidae) and looks like a smaller wolf . The distribution area of this species extends today from Central America to the northern regions of Canada and Alaska . Originally, the distribution area was limited to the prairie regions and the bushland in the west and midwest of North America .

However, due to the decline in the wolf population and the changes in habitat as a result of the spreading colonization of North America, the coyote has been able to conquer new habitat. During the past few decades it has populated the entire eastern half of North America. As an adaptable cultural follower , this species can now also be found in urban areas.

features

The coyote reaches a total length of 110 cm. The shoulder height is 50 cm. The weight is on average 14 kg and can be between 9 and 22 kg. Its coat color (see also coyote fur ) varies geographically. Coyotes in higher areas have darker fur than those living in deserts and are beige or gray. The throat and chest are white. Albinos are very rare. The hair of the northern subspecies is longer than that of the southern.

It can be distinguished from the wolf by its significantly smaller size, although it also appears leaner. It also has a narrower snout, larger ears, and shorter legs than its larger relative. It has fewer color variants than the wolf.

Typical of the coyote is the large, bushy tail, which it usually holds low on the ground.

habitat

Coyotes inhabit the North American continent from the subpolar north of Canada and Alaska through the entire USA and Mexico to Costa Rica . They have adapted to a wide variety of habitats and can live in dense forests as well as on the prairie . They only spread after the arrival of the settlers, before that they were only present on the prairie. Because of the wolf's extinction, they were able to take over their habitat. There is concern that the coyote could spread further to South America.

Lifestyle and diet

The coyote has less pronounced and less established social behavior than the wolf. Depending on its habitat, it either hunts alone or in small groups.

Coyotes have a reputation for being scavengers . Although they actually live on carrion , they hunt most of their food themselves. Mice and rabbits make up around 90 percent of the prey , birds , snakes , foxes , possums and raccoons are much more rarely eaten, as are young animals of larger mammal species. Adult deer , when sick or old, can be killed by a pack of coyotes; they can even kill bear cubs. In eastern North America, where coyotes are generally larger than their western counterparts, there are individual populations that are increasingly specializing in species such as the white-tailed deer . You benefit from the fact that the number of white-tailed deer has increased significantly in recent decades. The coyote also eats vegetable foods as complementary foods, for example fruits and berries . In Death Valley , they eat large numbers of beetles and caterpillars in spring. They kill rattlesnakes by grabbing their heads and then shaking them.

One of the reasons for conflict with humans is because they also kill domestic animals. Sheep definitely belong in their range of prey. In the vicinity of residential areas, coyotes increasingly go to the garbage cans and look for food there. But they also eat roaming house cats and smaller dogs . In urban areas of southern California, one in five coyote poop piles examined contained the remains of cats.

Reproduction and development

Coyotes have a gestation period of around 60 days and give birth to an average of four to six pups in one litter , usually in late April or early May. The mean life expectancy in the wild is six to eight years, the maximum age is 14.5 years. Both parents help feed the puppies. In autumn the youngsters look for their own hunting ground, usually within 15 kilometers. They are sexually mature at the age of one year.

Coyotes and domestic dogs are mutually fertile. Such mating between feral dogs and coyotes occasionally occurs; the resulting hybrids are called Coydogs in North America . But it also happens that many of these coydogs are just particularly large coyotes and are therefore confused. Coyotes and red wolves have also mated . Whether the actual wolf can form a pair with the coyote in the wild is controversial, because coyotes are part of the wolf's prey. But there are also reports of the coywolf , which is significantly more aggressive than the coyote. Probably the red wolf and the so-called Eastern timber wolf (a subspecies of the gray wolf), both of which are smaller than this, are hybrids of coyote and wolf. In any case, compared to the coyote, they have no long separate genetic lines of development, which is overlaid by (regionally different strengths) crossbreeding.

Hazard and protection

The coyote is classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) as not endangered ( least concern ) due to its large distribution area.

Coyotes are not protected in North America. While the wolf has become increasingly rare due to the stalking of humans, the coyote has benefited from this. The biologist David George Haskell justifies this, among other things, with the fact that European settlers had a cultural rejection of the wolf. At the same time, the European settlers reshaped the North American landscape in a way that made it difficult for the wolf to survive in these regions. As a result, large regions of North America were either completely extinct or hybridized. The more adaptable coyote moved into the habitats no longer occupied by the wolf and has replaced this species at the top of the food chain in many places. The coyote forms larger packs and is on average larger in the newly populated east of North America than in the west. According to Haskell, it is not possible to estimate the effects of the immigration of coyotes in eastern North America:

“Coyotes have reduced the number of raccoons, possums and - to the annoyance of cat owners - also that of cats. This reduction in small predatory mammals had an unexpected positive effect on birds. Areas where coyotes are found are safer places for songbirds to build nests and raise offspring. The addition of the coyote to the wildlife of the [eastern] forest leaves nothing untouched. It makes life safer for the prey of its prey, but this is undoubtedly not its only effect. The coyote dances across the entire food chain. He eats fruit, he eats the rodents that eat fruit and he eats the raccoon who eats fruit and rodents - that is why the ecological impact of the [immigrated] coyote is difficult to assess. Does this promote or limit the spread of plant seeds? How will the tick population change with fewer mice but more birds? "

Sign: “Do not feed coyotes”, Pima County , Arizona

Northeast North America was colonized by coyotes in the 1930s and 1940s. In the 1950s, the species began to expand its range limit further south. Coyotes were first spotted in Florida in the 1980s. Even massive hunting could not endanger the species in its healthy population. Coyotes are increasingly populating large American cities as cultural followers , where they usually feed on human waste. In April 2006, Washington DC was the last American metropolis to be "conquered" by the coyote. In March 2006, a coyote caused a stir in New York's Central Park . In Chicago, researchers have observed that coyotes are showing signs of “understanding” the road traffic regulations: When crossing one-way streets, they only look in one direction for oncoming vehicles; on multi-lane streets, they use the median as an intermediate stop.

Coyotes in culture

Evolution and systematics

Phylogenetic system of the genus Canis according to Koepfli et al. 2015
 CanisLycaon and  Cuon  


 Lycaon pictus (African wild dog)


   

 Cuon alpinus (red dog)


   

 Canis aureus (golden jackal)


   

 Canis simensis (Ethiopian wolf)


   

 Canis anthus  (African gold wolf)


   

 Canis latrans (coyote)


   

 Canis lupus (wolf; + domestic dog )








   

 Canis mesomelas ( black-backed jackal)


   

 Canis adustus (striped jackal)




Template: Klade / Maintenance / Style

The coyote is assigned to the genus of the wolf- and jackal-like ( Canis ) as Canis latrans . In addition to the nominate form Canis latrans latrans, another 18 subspecies are distinguished.

As part of the presentation of the genome sequence of the domestic dog , Lindblad-Toh et al. 2005 published a phylogenetic analysis of dogs (Canidae) based on molecular biological data. The coyote is compared to the wolf ( Canis lupus ) and the domestic dog ( Canis lupus familiaris ) as sister species . The sister species of this taxon is the golden jackal ( Canis aureus ). In the context of this presentation, the monophyly of the wolf-like and jackal-like (genus Canis ) was questioned, since the striped jackal ( Canis adustus ) and the black-backed jackal ( Canis mesomelas ) are sister species as the most basic species of all other representatives of the genus as well as the red dog ( Cuon alpinus ) and the African wild dog ( Lycaon pictus ). These two species would have to be included in the Canis genus in order for it to survive as a monophyletic genus.

Coyote (left) and wolf (right)

literature

Web links

Commons : Coyote  - Collection of images, videos, and audio files
Wiktionary: Coyote  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b David George Haskell: The Forest Unseen - A Year's Watch in Nature. Viking, New York 2012, ISBN 978-1-101-56106-5 , p. 151.
  2. Stuttgarter Zeitung: US East Coast - Invasion of Steppe Wolves , accessed on July 7, 2015.
  3. David George Haskell: The Forest Unseen - A Year's Watch in Nature. Viking, New York 2012, ISBN 9781101561065 , p. 152.
  4. David George Haskell: The Forest Unseen - A Year's Watch in Nature. Viking, New York 2012, ISBN 9781101561065 , p. 154.
  5. ^ Cordey, Huw: North America: A World in One Continent .
  6. Klauber, Lawrence Monroe: Rattlesnakes: Their Habits, Life Histories, and Influence on Mankind .
  7. David George Haskell: The Forest Unseen - A Year's Watch in Nature. Viking, New York 2012, ISBN 9781101561065 , p. 153.
  8. Rachel N. Larson, Justin L. Brown, Tim Karels, Seth PD Riley: Effects of urbanization on resource use and individual specialization in coyotes (Canis latrans) in southern California. PLOS, February, 2020, doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0228881 .
  9. Marc Bekoff: Canis latrans. Mammalian Species 79, 1977, pp. 1-9.
  10. Erik Zimen: The dog. C. Bertelsmann Verlag, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-570-00507-0 .
  11. Bridgett M. von Holdt, James A Cahill, Zhenxin Fan, and others. a .: Whole-genome sequence analysis shows that two endemic species of North American wolf are admixtures of the coyote and gray wolf. In: Science Advances 2 (2016) 7. DOI: 10.1126 / sciadv.1501714 .
  12. a b Canis latrans in the Red List of Threatened Species of the IUCN 2012. Posted by: EM Gese et al., 2008. Retrieved on March 25th.
  13. David George Haskell: The Forest Unseen - A Year's Watch in Nature. Viking, New York 2012, ISBN 9781101561065 , p. 154. The original quote is: Cojotes also reduce populations of raccoons, Opossums, and, to the Konsternation of pet owners, domestic cats. The suppression of these small omnivores has an unexpected silver lining for birds. Areas with coyotes are safe places for songbirds to build nests and raise young. The addition of the coyote to the forest's troupe therefore send ripples and Lurches throughout. The predator makes life safer for the prey's prei. No doubt other parts of the forest also feel tugs and puls. Because the coyote prances across the food web, eating fruits, killing the rodents that eats fruits, eating the raccoons that eat fruits and rodents, the coyote's ecological effects are hard to preach. Is seed dispersal helped or hindered? How do ticks fare with fewer mice but more birds?
  14. ^ New York Times, March 23, 2006: A Coyote Leads a Crowd on a Central Park Marathon .
  15. Emily Badger: You've Heard of Urban Coyotes. Urban Bears Could Be Next . In: The Atlantic Cities , October 12, 2012.
  16. How Fast Can A Roadrunner Run? In: 10,000 Birds. Retrieved April 4, 2011, December 3, 2019 (American English).
  17. Visions accessed on February 1, 2015: Modest Mouse publish animal video about Coyotes .
  18. Klaus-Peter Koepfli et al .: Genome-wide Evidence Reveals that African and Eurasian Golden Jackals Are Distinct Species. In: Current Biology. 2015, doi : 10.1016 / j.cub.2015.06.060 .
  19. a b Don E. Wilson & DeeAnn M. Reeder (eds.): Canis latrans ( Memento of the original from April 24, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.vertebrates.si.edu archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed).
  20. Kerstin Lindblad-Toh et al .: Genome sequence, comparative analysis and haplotype structure of the domestic dog. Nature 438, December 2005; Page 803–819. ( Abstract ).