Mountain Coati

Range

The Mountain Coati is native to Central and South America, and parts of the southwestern US. This ranges from the Andes of western Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, northern Peru, and through central America going up into the states bordering Mexico.

Facts

A coatimundi’s double jointed ankles rotate 180 degrees, enabling it to climb down a tree head first.

According to The Encyclopedia of Mammals, coati is not short for “coatimundi.” Females and their young form bands of 20 individuals or more, while adult males are solitary. This difference in social structure (and males being larger than females) confused biologists, who initially described the solitary males as a separate species. The use of “coatimundi,” meaning “lone coati” for males reflects this error. Now, only lone males are sometimes called coatimundi, although they are coatis, too.

Female coatis possess a larger frontal cortical volume than their male counterparts due to their expanded, lifelong social ties.