Is it a bear? A cat? A weasel? Nope, meet the coati. It's a dog-sized relative of the raccoon. And like raccoons, they get along pretty well with people. Unlike our nighttime bandits, coatis are active during the day. And they are excellent climbers, foraging in the trees as easily as on the ground.
🐶 🐶 🐶
Coatis eat fruit, insects, crabs and anything else they can catch. They have claws like a grizzly bear's to dig up food — and sharp teeth to match. But they are extremely friendly. Did I pay the coati tax? Only the coati knows.
A coati on a Pacific beach digs up hermit crabs that it crunched crab, shell and all. Yum!
The clawed tracks of a coati resemble those of raccoons.
A coati investigates fallen fruit in the rainforest near Arenal Observatory & Lodge. But when I sat on the ground to photograph him at his level, he wandered over to investigate me, ha. Nice coati! Much as I like coatis, I prefer to keep wildlife at a safe distance. This one wanted to climb in my lap.
A big male coati looks for fallen fruit along a dirt road in the shadow of Arenal Volcano. Male coatis are mostly solitary. And their wide-ranging forays help spread a variety of rainforest seeds — pre-fertilized, ha.
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