The white-nosed coati is the tropics reaching up into Arizona, a long-snouted, long-tailed relative of the raccoon that ranges no farther north in the United States than the state’s southern mountains. Open occurrence databases hold 2,237 Arizona records for it, the great majority iNaturalist photos, because unlike most of its relatives the coati is active by day and travels in conspicuous bands.
A Sky Island specialist
In the United States the coati is essentially a southeastern-Arizona animal, and its records show it plainly: Santa Cruz, Cochise, and Pima counties dominate, centered on the oak and sycamore canyons of the Coronado National Forest, Madera Canyon, and the Chiricahuas. Coatis climb well but forage mostly on the ground, rooting through leaf litter with a mobile, upturned snout for insects, fruit, and small animals, and holding their tall banded tails upright like flags as a band moves through the woods. Females and young travel together in troops that can number a dozen or more, while adult males keep to themselves for most of the year.
At the northern edge of its range
Arizona sits at the very rim of the coati’s range, so its numbers here swing with wet and dry years, and the animal is more plentiful in some seasons than others. Records come in across the whole calendar with no sharp peak, reflecting a diurnal, social animal that is out and visible whenever it is present.
Common questions
Is a coati the same as a coatimundi? Yes. “Coatimundi” is just another name for the same animal, and in Arizona it is the white-nosed coati, a daytime relative of the raccoon.
Full species profile
