Ring-tailed Coati

 (C) Gustavo Fernando Durán (shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license)

Scientific name: Nasua nasua

Family: Procyonidae

Appearance: The South American Coati is a member of the Raccoon family. It has a red-brown coat above and is paler underneath, its tail is long and has yellow rings. The head is long and elongated with a flexible snout which enables it to poke around under rocks and into crevices when searching for food.

Size: Head and body 41-67 cm; Tail 32-69 cm; Weight 3.5-6 kg

Natural history: The South American Coati is an introduced species to the UK but there is currently no evidence to suggest that there are any breeding populations in the wild. They are active during the day, are both arboreal and terrestrial and usually inhabit forest. Males are solitary while females and young travel in groups. Their diet consists of fruit, invertebrates and small mammals. Breeding takes place when the main fruit in the diet is in season. Females mate with multiple males and give birth to a litter of between 2 and 4 young.