White-Nosed Coati

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White-Nosed Coati

The white-nosed coati is Costa Rica’s most frequently seen member of the raccoon family. The coati is diurnal, terrestrial and arboreal. It is brownish and longer than the raccoon, but slimmer and lighter. It’s most distinctive features are a long, mobile, upturned whitish snout and long, faintly ringed tail held straight up in the air when foraging. An adult coati will be about two feet in length and weigh about 11 pounds, with the males being slightly bigger than females.

Coatis are quite at home in the canopy, frequently climbing tall trees to get at fruit or to sleep, but they spend most of their time foraging on the ground. The coatis diet varies with the seasons and the abundance of different foods during those times. They are fruit lovers, but also will feed on beetles and their larvae, crickets, caterpillars, millipedes, spiders, crabs and are also the main predators of the eggs and hatchlings of olive ridley sea turtles at Nancite beach in Santa Rosa National Park.

Female and young coatis live in groups, known as bands, of up to 25 individuals, while adult males are usually solitary. It is thought by researchers that this unusual social arrangement has many benefits, one being that coatis probably gain safety in numbers. Small bands and solitary males are more vulnerable to predators but also adult males are usually excluded from the bands because they are major predators on coati young. Females are unable to deter males in one-on-one confrontations, but in groups they normally triumph. Competition for food among coatis is also reduced by the exclusion of males.

Coati males are only allowed to enter a band during a two-week-long mating season. Although the males will ward off other predators of the band at this time, they are still submissive to the females of the band.

The gestation period lasts 10 or 11 weeks resulting in anywhere between two to seven young. Pregnant females leave the band approximately a week or so before giving birth to build nests in tree holes or in the dense vegetation. Young coatis nurse until their about four months old and reach full size at about 15 months. They return to the band as soon as the young are able to keep up with the rest of the group. The coati young are extremely susceptible to predators, such as the male coati, boa constrictors and White-Faced Capuchin monkeys; and females often have difficulty defending their young by themselves, so returning to the band as soon as possible is top priority, as the band will help protect the young.

Coatis are important seed dispersers as they defecate almost all the seeds they eat intact, and quite far from the parent plant. Coatis are sometimes hunted, but by and large they do well in disturbed habitats and are common in many areas of Costa Rica.