Nasua nasua
The South American coati, also known as the ring-tailed coati or brown-nosed coati, is a coati species and a member of the raccoon family (Procyonidae), found in the tropical and subtropical parts of South America. An adult generally weighs from 2–7.2 kg (4.4–15.9 lb) and is 85–113 cm (33–44 in) long, with half of that being its tail. Its color is highly variable and the rings on the tail may be only somewhat visible, but its most distinguishing characteristic is that it lacks the largely white snout of its northern relative, the white-nosed coati.

Rufus46 · 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
- South American coatiPBDB
- Sits inside
- NasuaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivore, omnivorePBDB, for Nasua
- Life habit
- scansorialPBDB, for Nasua
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At most 129 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
5 occurrences of Nasua nasua on record, most of them in the Holocene. 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
5 occurrences- Pleistocene20%
- Holocene80%
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.
Nasua nasua and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Nasua nasua and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
158 taxa- Cuniculus paca5 sites
- Dasypus (Dasypus) novemcinctus5 sites
- Oryzomys4 sites
- Proechimys4 sites
- Cyclopes3 sites
- Didelphis marsupialis3 sites
- Eira barbara3 sites
- Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris3 sites
- Mazama americana3 sites
- Metachirus nudicaudatus3 sites
- Panthera onca3 sites
- Pecari tajacu3 sites
- Potos flavus3 sites
- Procyon3 sites
- Puma concolor3 sites
- Sciurus3 sites
- Tapirus terrestris3 sites
- Tayassu pecari3 sites
- Alouatta seniculus2 sites
- Aotus trivirgatus2 sites
- Ateles paniscus2 sites
- Bassaricyon gabbii2 sites
- Bradypus variegatus2 sites
- Caluromys lanatus2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Nasua nasua, 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
5 references- Fauna de mamíferos do Quaternário de Serra da Mesa (Goiás, Brasil)1
- Barro Colorado Island and Tropical Biology1
- Central Amazonian Forests and the Minimum Crtical Size of Ecosystems Project1
- An Overview of Research at Cocha Cashu Biological Station1
- Piacaguera: Um Sambaqui do Litoral do Estado de Sao Paulo, Brasil1
Each of the 5 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content3
Picture of Nasua nasua
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Rufus46
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Nasua nasua · ummz:mammals:126118
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- Pedro Alessio
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
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 itNasua through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linneaus 1766)