Canis latrans

Coyote

Expanded dramatically since 1900 to cover nearly all of North America from Alaska to Panama, including dense urban centres — one of the few large carnivores to gain range under human pressure.

Group: Canidae
IUCN: LC
Reviewed: 2026-08-20

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Popular claims checked

The claim: Coyote is 'the trickster' of Native American mythology — one figure with one meaning across the continent.

What the evidence says: Coyote figures differ substantially between nations and are not interchangeable. For the Apsáalooke, Old Man Coyote is a creator whose blunders make the world. For the Diné, Mąʼii is a transgressive and genuinely dangerous being whose appearance may require ceremonial response, and whose stories are season-bound. Collapsing these into one comic archetype is not a summary; it erases the distinctions that carry the meaning.

Why it persists: The comparative 'trickster' category was useful to early anthropology and became a fixture of general education, where its specificity was lost.

Where you'll meet it: Medicine Cards and the material derived from it · Popular mythology anthologies · Introductory comparative-religion teaching

Sources (2)

EthnographyLuckert, Karl W. (1979)
Coyoteway: A Navajo Holyway Healing CeremonialUniversity of Arizona Presspp. 3-27
EthnographyLowie, Robert H. (1918)
Myths and Traditions of the Crow IndiansAnthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. 25, American Museum of Natural Historypp. 14-37

The claim: Shooting and poisoning coyotes reduces their numbers.

What the evidence says: Coyote populations compensate for removal through larger litters, earlier first breeding and immigration into vacated territory. Decades of intensive control across the western United States coincided with the species expanding its range across the continent. Non-lethal husbandry measures have better evidence behind them for reducing livestock loss.

Why it persists: The intuition that killing animals reduces their number is strong, and bounty programmes create constituencies that outlast the evidence.

Where you'll meet it: Livestock predator-control practice · State bounty programmes

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedKnowlton, Frederick F., Gese, Eric M., Jaeger, Michael M. (1999)
Coyote depredation control: an interface between biology and managementJournal of Range Management, vol. 52pp. 398-412Open source

Verified observation

In nature

A medium canid of exceptional behavioural flexibility. Social organisation, activity period and diet all shift with local conditions, and persecution tends to increase rather than reduce numbers.

rangeEstablished

Coyote range expanded across North America through the 20th century, filling the niche left by extirpated wolves and colonising cities; the species now occupies nearly the whole continent.

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedHody, James W., Kays, Roland (2018)
Mapping the expansion of coyotes (Canis latrans) across North and Central AmericaZooKeys, vol. 759pp. 1-33Open source

social structureEstablished

Social organisation varies with prey size and resource availability, from solitary and paired animals to cooperative packs, rather than following one fixed structure.

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedBekoff, Marc, Gese, Eric M. (2003)
Coyote (Canis latrans)Wild Mammals of North America: Biology, Management, and Conservation, Johns Hopkins University Presspp. 1-9

behaviourEstablished

Urban coyotes shift activity toward the night compared with rural populations, reducing overlap with human movement.

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedGehrt, Stanley D., Anchor, Chris, White, Lynsey A. (2009)
Home range and landscape use of coyotes in a metropolitan landscape: conflict or coexistence?Journal of Mammalogy, vol. 90pp. 1045-1057Open source

populationEstablished

Culling tends not to reduce coyote populations: removal is offset by larger litters, earlier breeding and immigration, a compensatory response well documented in the management literature.

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedKnowlton, Frederick F., Gese, Eric M., Jaeger, Michael M. (1999)
Coyote depredation control: an interface between biology and managementJournal of Range Management, vol. 52pp. 398-412Open source

dietEstablished

Coyote diet is broad and locally variable, including small mammals, fruit, insects, carrion and human refuse, which underlies their success in modified landscapes.

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedGehrt, Stanley D., Anchor, Chris, White, Lynsey A. (2009)
Home range and landscape use of coyotes in a metropolitan landscape: conflict or coexistence?Journal of Mammalogy, vol. 90pp. 1045-1057Open source

genetic monogamyEstablished

Genotyping of 96 offspring across 18 litters in a dense Chicago coyote population found no polygamy and no mate abandonment — pair bonds held for years despite abundant food and high density.

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedHennessy, Cecilia A., Dubach, Jean, Gehrt, Stanley D. (2012)
Long-term pair bonding and genetic evidence for monogamy among urban coyotes (Canis latrans)Journal of Mammalogy, vol. 93pp. 732-742Open source

helper behaviourSupported

Non-dispersing offspring that stay as helpers guard the den and defend territory but rarely feed the pups, and their presence does not measurably improve juvenile weight.

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedBekoff, Marc, Wells, Michael C. (1982)
Behavioral ecology of coyotes: social organization, rearing patterns, space use, and resource defenseZeitschrift für Tierpsychologie, vol. 60pp. 281-305Open source

hybrid colonizationSupported

Eastern coyotes hybridised with wolves only along the northern edge of their expansion, and that front — with larger skulls — advanced roughly five times faster than the southern one.

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedKays, Roland, Curtis, Abigail, Kirchman, Jeremy J. (2010)
Rapid adaptive evolution of northeastern coyotes via hybridization with wolvesBiology Letters, vol. 6pp. 89-93Open source

chorus misperceptionSupported

Listeners hearing one to four coyotes reliably detect each added animal yet overestimate the group size by nearly twofold — a small chorus sounds like a crowd.

Sources (1)

Peer reviewedBrewster, Kyle, Henke, Scott E., Ortega, Alfonso, Tomecek, John, Turner, Benjamin (2017)
Do you hear what I hear? Human perception of coyote group sizeHuman-Wildlife Interactions, vol. 11pp. 167-174

badger associationDisputed

Coyotes have long been reported hunting alongside badgers at ground-squirrel colonies, but a three-year camera survey in Kansas recorded the two species together on only 4.6% of days — below what chance would predict.

Sources (2)

Peer reviewedMinta, Steven C., Minta, Kathryn A., Lott, Dale F. (1992)
Hunting associations between badgers (Taxidea taxus) and coyotes (Canis latrans)Journal of Mammalogy, vol. 73pp. 814-820Open source
Peer reviewedWerdel, Ty J., Piper, Colleen W., Palomo-Munoz, Gabriela, Ahlers, Adam A. (2026)
Anecdotes or ecological patterns: symbiotic foraging behaviors in coyotes and badgersWildlife Lettersp. wll2.70035Open source

Evidence to reflection

What the behavior can suggest

This section is interpretation, not evidence. It reads documented behavior as a human character trait — a comparison we are drawing, not something the animal intends.

persistent

Positive

Coyotes expanded across almost all of North America during the century in which they were most intensively hunted, poisoned and trapped, and culling generally fails to reduce their numbers.

The remarkable thing is the direction: sustained persecution correlated with expansion, because removal triggers larger litters and earlier breeding. Read as character, that is someone whose response to pressure is to produce more of themselves — persistence not as endurance under attack but as a positive response to it. The coyote is not defiant; this is population dynamics, not attitude.

Opposition organises you. People who set out to stop you tend to find they have expanded you.

playful

Mixed

Coyote social structure is not fixed: the same species lives solitarily, in pairs, or in cooperative packs depending on prey size and resources.

The animal has no settled way of being: household size, working hours and diet are all negotiable against circumstance. Read as character, that is improvisational adaptability — someone with no fixed form who is therefore hard to plan around and impossible to exclude. The mixed polarity is deliberate: the trait that makes them unkillable also makes them untrustworthy as a fixed quantity.

You fit any room and commit to none of them, and both halves of that are true at once.

restless

Mixed

Urban coyotes shift their activity into the night, reducing overlap with people, and live largely unseen inside major cities.

Occupying a place by rearranging when you exist in it, rather than where, is an unusual solution. Read as character, that is someone who stays by becoming inconspicuous — present in the same city, on a different schedule. Note this is documented behavioural plasticity, not stealth as an intention.

You did not leave; you just stopped being where people were looking.

Named tradition

Traditional symbolism

These accounts are attributed to specific peoples and sources. They are not merged into a generic Native tradition.

Diné (Navajo) (Diné)

Documented from the late 19th century; ceremonial and narrative traditions continuing. Living tradition.

Name in language: Mąʼii

Mąʼii is a transgressive figure whose appetites and disregard for rule produce consequence: he is dangerous rather than charming, and encountering a coyote can require ceremonial response. He is neither a comic figure nor a teacher of lessons in the way popular retellings suggest.

Context: Coyote narratives are told in specific seasons and settings, and coyote appears in ceremonial contexts including Coyoteway. Some material is not appropriate for casual retelling, and the seasonal restriction on storytelling is itself a documented rule.

Sources (1)

EthnographyLuckert, Karl W. (1979)
Coyoteway: A Navajo Holyway Healing CeremonialUniversity of Arizona Presspp. 3-27

Crow (Apsáalooke) (Apsáalooke)

Documented from the early 20th century; narrative tradition continuing. Living tradition.

Name in language: Isáahkawuattee (Old Man Coyote)

Old Man Coyote is a creator figure as well as a fool: he makes the world and its features, often by accident or through appetite, and his errors are constitutive rather than merely funny. Creation and foolishness are the same act.

Context: Central to Apsáalooke creation narrative. Note that this creator role is quite different from the Diné figure above — the two should not be merged into a single 'Coyote the trickster'.

Sources (1)

EthnographyLowie, Robert H. (1918)
Myths and Traditions of the Crow IndiansAnthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. 25, American Museum of Natural Historypp. 14-37

Modern Western material

Modern readings

Modern Western material, published in the 20th or 21st century. Listed to show what the popular genre claims — not as evidence about any people.

Medicine Cards (Jamie Sams & David Carson)

First published 1988

New Age syncretic

Coyote is presented as the trickster who teaches through self-inflicted disaster — the querent is told they are fooling themselves, and invited to laugh at it.

Our assessment: Trickster narratives about coyote are genuinely widespread across western North America, so the association is not invented. What is invented is the tone: the therapeutic, affectionate reading is modern, and it is not what the Diné material describes.

Sources (2)

Modern deckSams, Jamie, Carson, David (1988)
Medicine Cards: The Discovery of Power Through the Ways of AnimalsBear & Companypp. 78-81
Peer reviewedAldred, Lisa (2000)
Plastic shamans and astroturf sun dances: New Age commercialization of Native American spiritualityAmerican Indian Quarterly, vol. 24pp. 329-332Open source

Core shamanism (Michael Harner, Foundation for Shamanic Studies)

First published 1980

Contemporary practice

In core shamanism the coyote appears as a trickster power animal, met on the journey and read as a teacher who instructs through disruption and reversal.

Our assessment: Trickster coyote figures are real and widespread across western North America, but they are not interchangeable and they are not gentle. The Diné Mąʼii is genuinely dangerous and season-bound in its telling; the Apsáalooke Old Man Coyote is a creator. Harner's framework turns a being one must be careful around into a resource one acquires.

Sources (3)

Modern deckHarner, Michael (1980)
The Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Power and HealingHarper & Rowpp. 57-72
Academic bookWallis, Robert J. (2003)
Shamans/Neo-Shamans: Ecstasy, Alternative Archaeologies and Contemporary PagansRoutledgepp. 29-49
Academic bookZnamenski, Andrei A. (2007)
The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and the Western ImaginationOxford University Presspp. 233-264

Open research questions

Replace Lowie 1918 with a contemporary Apsáalooke-authored treatment of Old Man Coyote if one is available in English.
The Coyoteway citation raises the same publication-ethics question as the Hopi kachina material. Consider whether to cite it at all, or to describe the figure only from narrative sources.