Canis latrans

The coyote is a species of canine also known as the American jackal, prairie wolf, and brush wolf. It is native to North America, and it is smaller than its close relative, the gray wolf, and slightly smaller than the closely related eastern wolf and red wolf. It fills much of the same ecological niche as the golden jackal does in Eurasia but the coyote is generally larger.

Canis latrans

Yathin S Krishnappa · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
coyotePBDB
Sits inside
CanisPBDB
Diet
carnivore, omnivorePBDB
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Canidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Mass
262.5 gWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 1.7 million years on record.

The record covers at least 1.8 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 4.7 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pliocene — about 6 of 103 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 94 of 103 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 3 of 103 occurrences4.9–4.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.7–4.5 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences4.5–4.3 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences4.3–4.2 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences4.2–4.0 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences4.0–3.8 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences3.8–3.6 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences3.6–3.5 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences3.5–3.3 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences3.3–3.1 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences3.1–2.9 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.9–2.8 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.8–2.6 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.6–2.4 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences2.3–2.1 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences2.1–1.9 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences1.9–1.7 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences1.6–1.4 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.4–1.2 Mya — about 6 occurrences1.2–1.0 Mya — about 6 occurrences1.0–867 ka Mya — about 6 occurrences867 ka–693 ka Mya — about 6 occurrences693 ka–520 ka Mya — about 6 occurrences520 ka–347 ka Mya — about 6 occurrences347 ka–173 ka Mya — about 6 occurrences173 ka–0 Mya — about 51 occurrences1.8 Mya11.7 ka5.2 Mya0 Mya

103 occurrences of Canis latrans on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

103 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

21 formations

Palm Spring — 32.90°N, 117.10°W"unnamed sandstone" — 33.90°N, 117.00°WCrooked Creek — 37.20°N, 100.30°WCrooked Creek — 39.00°N, 98.20°WKingsdown — 37.05°N, 100.50°WKingsdown — 37.20°N, 100.30°WChapala — 20.30°N, 103.20°WWando — 32.76°N, 80.45°WWando — 33.08°N, 79.94°WCamp Rice — 32.00°N, 106.70°WManix — 34.80°N, 117.00°WTacubaya — 21.80°N, 102.30°WLa Habra — 33.60°N, 117.80°WTurlock Lake — 37.06°N, 120.20°WSeymour — 33.75°N, 99.50°WPauba — 33.90°N, 117.00°WTule — 34.51°N, 101.41°WAmerican Falls Lake Bed E — 42.80°N, 112.90°WFloral — 52.20°N, 106.70°WRiverbank — 38.60°N, 121.50°WPalos Verdes Sand — 34.00°N, 118.20°WShuler — 32.71°N, 96.71°WCanepatch — 33.68°N, 78.88°WBeaumont — 29.66°N, 94.09°W

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The named rock units Canis latrans has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 68 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Canis latrans and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Canis latrans and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

1,211 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 102 sites for Canis latrans, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

72 references

Each of the 103 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 60 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content3

Picture of Canis latrans

Credit
Yathin S Krishnappa
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Laser scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Canis latrans · NMV:Mammalogy:C31314

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itCanis through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Say 1823)