Pond Visitor

Here's a surprise: a coatimundi drinking from our pond yesterday! Now understand, our house is about 400 m from the forest. In order to get here, an animal would have to traverse open pasture and roads. Not the best scenario for secretive forest animals.

But then, the coati is not especially secretive nor that dependent on high quality forest. In fact, this species does fairly well in secondary growth and disturbed areas, so perhaps our visitor wasn't all that big a surprise. Related to the raccoon, this is a White-nosed Coati (Nasua narica) also known as "pizote" or "quash."

We've let the hill we live on come back in second growth vegetation and put in a small pond for the birds. Over the years, a lot of other interesting creatures have stopped by, and the coati was somewhat unexpected. Or maybe not. Our small dog had been "telling us" for a week that some new and unusual animal was on our hill. Now I think we finally know what it is.