Coyote
Amazing fact
Coyotes hold their legs stiffly together when they pounce on a mouse.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
Coyotes hold their legs stiffly together when they pounce on a mouse.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Coyote
- Scientific name
- Canis latrans
- Japanese name
- コヨーテ
- Group
- Land mammals
- Class
- Mammalia
- Order
- Carnivora
- Family
- Canidae
- Genus
- Canis
It lives throughout North and Central America. Because it tolerates human activity, it also lives near towns and farms.
Its ears are pointed and stand upright, and it holds its tail low, below its back, when running. These traits tell it apart from dogs.
It sometimes hunts together with badgers: the coyote chases prey above ground, while the badger digs rodents out of their burrows.
How the Coyote lives
They are mainly active at night but sometimes appear during the day. They hunt alone or in family groups, depending on the availability of prey. They sometimes enlarge badger burrows to use as dens. They howl to let other members of their pack know where they are.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity WebBasic data
- Size
- 75–100 cm
- Weight
- 7–21 kg
- Lifespan
- up to 10 years in the wild, up to 18 years in captivity
- Active
- At night (nocturnal)
- Diet
- Primarily small mammals
- Range
- North and Central America
Where the Coyote has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- コヨーテ
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web — Canis latransChecked: 2026-11-04
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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