At the Zoo: Coatis, The Raccoon's Sociable
Cousin
by Janeen Renaghan
Photo by Jesse Cohen, NZP
Think you know your mammals? Here’s a tricky one: What has a 27-inch ringed tail, a face usually buried in a pile of food and dirt, and four legs that can scramble up the nearest tall tree? If your first thought was of the raccoon that lurks near your house, you were close. Travel a little bit farther on the raccoon family tree and you’ll find the answer: a coati.
At
a glance, coatis have a strong resemblance to their black-masked
cousins. Like raccoons, coatis are members of the family Procyonidae,
a group that includes other little-known creatures such as
olingos and kinkajous. Procyonidae comes from the Greek words
pro, meaning before, and kuon, meaning dog.
Racoons were originally thought to be the ancestors of dogs.
Even Christopher Columbus, upon seeing a raccoon for the first
time, was said to have described it as a "clown-like
dog."
Long bodies and long, usually ringed tails are typical of procyonids. The muzzles on the four species of coatis—white-nosed, ringtailed, mountain, and island—are often marked with white or black bands. Their exceptionally long snouts, well adapted for sniffing out insects, are sometimes crowned with a patch of white fur, as in the white-nosed coati (Nasua narica). In addition to insects, they enjoy fruit and occasionally use their forepaws to catch frogs, lizards, and mice.
White-nosed coatis inhabit the woodlands and desert grasslands of Arizona and Mexico and the forests of Central America, where they can live in both high- and low-altitude areas. While raccoons are active at night, coatis are diurnal animals, making their mischief during the day.
White-nosed coatis at the Zoo are so curious and intelligent they sometimes create havoc for keepers. Good with their hands, the coatis have been known to scale the wire-mesh walls of their enclosures and unscrew heat lamps from the ceilings, hoarding screws and bulbs as playthings. Keepers try to keep the coatis busy by making the exhibit floor an interesting place to explore, much like their natural forest habitat. They spread dog chow, dead mice, and bananas beneath a blanket of mulch, so the coatis spend hours searching and digging for food. The nettlesome creatures will also play with just about anything, as happy to paw a piece of cardboard as a baby is to shake a rattle. And to a keeper, cardboard toys are always better than heat lamps.
Coatis get into everything because they can. According to keeper Jeanne Minor, "Coatis are graceful climbers. They look as much at home up in trees as they do on the ground." Agile climbing comes naturally for coatis. Their lengthy tails, which are longer than their heads and bodies combined, help balance them when climbing. In addition, coatis can rotate their ankles 180 degrees and descend trees head first.
Coatis at the Zoo may get into trouble just like their impish raccoon cousins, but their behavior in the wild reveals how different they are from other mostly solitary procyonids. Unlike other members of this family, adult female coatis and juveniles associate in bands. These bands of five to 12 individuals exclude adult males, except during breeding season; juvenile males are included for only their first two years. Adult male coatis are virtual pariahs—so solitary that biologists originally identified them as a separate species.
Female coatis, on the other hand, are extremely gregarious. Bonds between adult female band members are formed largely to benefit juveniles within the group, and their altruism is remarkable. For example, female "friends" within a band help take care of all the young in the group, not just their own. A female separates from the band when pregnant to construct a tree nest, where she gives birth to a litter of between two and seven young. After the birth of the litter, female "friends" of the mother sometimes enter the nest to assist in nursing the infants—creating what is, in fact, an intimate and downright neighborly day care system.
Adult male coatis are permitted to associate with the band during this breeding and nesting period, yet they remain subservient to the females. Males become part of groups for several consecutive days after the birth of a litter in order to become acquainted with their young. While this may sound like a sweet paternal gesture, its purpose is mostly preventive. If the males are not allowed a short period of time in which to identify their young, they may prey on them in the future.
After about five weeks the mother and her litter leave the nest to join the band.
"Friends" of the mother may continue to nurse and groom the youngsters. (Coati grooming is like communal bathing. Using their long claws, they comb and pick parasites from each other’s fur.) Perhaps even more extraordinary, the altruism of the coati bands seems to have little to do with kinship. A female coati is just as likely to take care of an infant to whom she is not related as one to whom she is.
But females’ obligations in coati bands do not begin and end in the nest; they are also responsible for vigilance and defense. While foraging, wild female adults execute military-like tactics, organizing themselves in various spatial formations to surround and protect the young. Low grunting noises are used to maintain contact among band members. When threatened, coati females indicate alarm by barking and twitching their tails. Coatis do not share food, so the apparent purpose of group foraging is most likely cooperative defense.
At the Zoo, coati social dynamics are unique. Adult males and females nestle in dens together and there seems to be little antagonism between the sexes, though Jeanne Minor says that the females "still rule the roost." Day care and military strategies intact, female coatis are exceptionally self-sufficient—at the Zoo or in the wild, they are a quadruped model for feminists everywhere.
(ZooGoer 26(3) 1997. Copyright 1997 Friends of the National Zoo. All rights reserved.)
