CoyoteCanis latrans
 
Physical Characters
A grizzled grey or reddish-grey coat with buff underparts, long, rusty or yellowish legs and a bushy tail characterize the coyote. They have arresting, yellow eyes and prominent ears. Average weight is 20-40 pounds.
Distribution
The coyote was originally native only to the prairies and arid west but as settlers moved across the country, altering the landscape and doing away with wolves, a new niche was opened up to the coyote. They now thrive in the Western Hemisphere from the Pacific to Atlantic Oceans.
Food
Coyotes are opportunistic omnivores which take advantage of a variety of resources found in their environments. Their food sources include, but are not limited to, small rodents, rabbits, deer, elk, moose, antelope, cattle, hogs, skunk, javelina, armadillo, opossum, birds, crustaceans, insects, lizards, prickly pear cactus, fruits, and grasses. Coyotes are active during both the day and night hours but are much more active at night, particularly times around dawn and dusk. This also affects the types of prey coyotes are able to eat because some animals have very different daily activity patterns which would prevent coyotes from hunting them. The type of food that coyotes utilize is also dependent on group or pack size. Transient coyotes generally scavenge more than coyotes living in pairs or packs. This is probably due to the fact that packs can organize hunting strategies that a solitary coyote can’t accomplish alone. Both mated pairs and packs hunt large ungulates much more than transients. In addition, packs have been observed to hunt ungulates more than mated pairs.
The percentage of mammalian flesh in the coyote's diet varies depending on the season. As the seasons change coyotes must constantly modify their diets to fit the available resources for that time of year. For example, in the winter months mammals account for approximately 87% of the diet. This is due to the low availability of flora during the cold winter months. In the summer months mammals account for approximately 28% of the diet. Mammals compose such a large portion of the coyote winter diet due to low availability of other food sources in the colder months such as insects, lizards, and plants. Coyotes also differ in the manner they obtain food between the cold and warm months. During the winter season coyotes tend to scavenge for carcasses of dead animals, such as ungulates, while in the summer months coyotes tend to kill their prey, such as small rodents.
It takes at least two coyotes to kill an adult deer. This eliminates deer as a potential food source for transients and some mated pairs. In addition, during the winter months transients and mated pairs rarely gain access to carrion. When a pack finds the carcass of a dead animal it will intensely defend the desirable resource. Carrion is a very valuable food source during the winter. This is because tracking the scent and locating the carcass dosen’t involve extensive energy expenditures from to stalking and killing living prey.
Coyotes have very few natural predators. These predators include alligators, wolves, mountain lions or cougars, and most detrimental to the coyote populations, humans. The type of predator a coyote may have is dependent on its location.
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