I saw an article in the New York Times this morning that caught my eye about coyotes. Since we live in the suburbs of Las Vegas we frequently hear and see these elusive creatures of the night. I say night because here we have only encountered them at night, their voices are often heard an only an occasional flash of them passing by in the night are the only tell tale signs of their presence here.
According to this article there are significant differences between the western coyote and the eastern coyote. One being that the DNA of the eastern Coyote is mixed with some wolf DNA and some strains of the species have domestic dog DNA mixed in. Since all of the species in the genus Canis can be successfully interbreed it makes perfect sense that interbreeding actually has happened. The eastern coyote is bigger than the coyotes we see out here and their coat colors very also so besides the tests on the DNA there are significant differences in appearance.
The coyote is an extremely intelligent and successful animal. Their Ability to adapt to most any environment and elude danger in most cases with what seems like an almost 6th sense makes them be able to thrive well and increase in numbers so easily.
This article has so much more to it, well worth the read.
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