Monday, April 18, 2011

Animal Alphabet: C is for Coati

For this week's entry in the Animal Alphabet, I picked out a creature I knew by another name.

Did you know there's actually no such thing as a coatimundi? Apparently people at some stage were confused by the differing habits of the solitary male and the extremely social female, and construed them as belonging to separate species; really, they're all coatis.

I plan to take my correction in stride. In fact, I've been happy to discover that the gangs formed by mama coatis and their kits are super cute. You should see them in the BBC Life episode about mammals: super cute, I say. (And, like many social animals, they can apparently be raised by people as pets.)

Anyway, C is for COATI.



Do you recognize what I'm swiping there? Do you want a prize for recognizing it, or just bonus points?

And if I said coati, koala, coati, koala, coati, koala long enough, would I get one of those critters for my very own? (Alas, I'm sure neither would thrive in Vermont.)

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