Coyote Beautiful Trivia Quiz

Answer: Barking dog

Though the coyote is perhaps most well known for its howl, coyotes have at least eleven known vocalizations. These include howls, woofs, barks, whines, etc., and they can be classified into three categories: greeting sounds, alarm or combative sounds, and contact sounds. Their howling and long distance communications have led them to sometimes be referred to as "song dogs".

Answer: North America

The coyote's wide range of habitat makes it of least concern for conservation efforts. It is believed that coyotes originally inhabited the Western parts of the continent where there is an abundance of grassland and plains; however, its habitat extended into the Eastern parts in the early 20th century due to the transformation of forests into agricultural lands and efforts to control the wolf population in the area.

Answer: Cougar

Not only are coyotes not known as cougars, but the animals are from two different families. Coyotes are from the Canidae family, like dogs and wolves, while cougars are in the Felidae family and are known as the largest of the Felinae subfamily which contains other smaller cats such as cheetah, lynx and bobcat. The really big cats such as lions, tigers, leopards and jaguar are in the other subfamily known as Pantherinae.

When the Spanish arrived in the New World, they had not seen coyotes before, so some early reports of them in Spanish chronicles referred to them as 'Spanish foxes' or 'jackals'. The word 'coyote' is derived from the nahuatl term for the animal, 'coyotl', and it was first used in Spanish, though the pronunciation of the word differs in English and Spanish.

Answer: Coyotes are monogamous and mate for life

When a female coyote is ready to mate, she begins to mark her scent to attract males. Males will follow the female until she accepts one and mates with him. The couple then claim a territory and build or find a den for their family. Both parents participate in the raising of the pups, with the male helping with grooming and feeding in addition to guarding the pups.

Answer: Tiburon Island coyote

The Tiburon coyote is found on Mexico's Tiburon Island located in the Gulf of California. Tiburon coyotes are small with reddish brown fur and are almost identical to other coyotes, but they differ from other types of coyotes in their swimming capabilities. It is possible that this enhanced ability is what allowed their ancestors to arrive on the island from the mainland.

Answer: Rabbits and hares

According to the U.S. Forest Service, rabbits and hares (lagomorphs) were found to be the favorite meal by far for coyotes in a study of 17 Western states. Overall, lagomorphs made up one-third of their diets. In North-Eastern Utah and South-Central Idaho, a whopping 75 percent of their diets year-round consisted of black-tailed jackrabbits.

Coyotes also feed on mule deer and cattle (particularly around cattle ranches in Arizona) but black bears are a different story - coyotes are the prey of black bears. Overall, coyotes adapt to whatever food source is available, with scientists finding that plants make up a large amount of their diet in the desert brush area of Arizona.

Answer: Rattlesnakes

Mountain lions (also known as cougars) have been known to kill and eat coyotes. Other predators include humans, gray wolves and both black and grizzly bears. Golden eagles sometimes attack young coyotes. The rattlesnake is not large enough to attack a coyote. In fact, it sometimes finds itself as a hungry coyote's prey.

Answer: Badgers

In this mutual relationship, the coyote chases down the prey and the badger digs it out of its hole. This leads to a more effective and successful hunt than either of the animals is capable of individually. This relationship is not a recent discovery - there are depictions of the two animals interacting on some examples of pre-Columbian pottery.

Answer: around 69 kph or 43 mph

The coyote is pretty nimble on its feet, and can also jump up to four metres (13 feet). The black-tailed jackrabbit, one of the animals the coyote preys on, can put up a good fight, running at a maximum speed of 64kph (40mph). In comparison, a gray wolf runs at 50-60 kph (30-37 mph), and a whitetail deer at a maximum of 48 kph (30mph), while a roadrunner can only reach about 32 kph (20 mph).

Answer: Eradicating harmful plants

In the US, coyotes are hunted and killed for a variety of reasons, usually under the pretense of protecting livestock and domestic animals. Methods for killing coyotes are equally diverse, but the most common are aerial gunning, poison, trapping, and shooting.

Despite these efforts to control their populations, coyotes continue to thrive. Coyotes provide many benefits to the environment and local ecosystem. They hunt rodents and rabbits, keeping their populations in check, which in turn benefits humans by limiting the number of rodents eating crops and transmitting diseases.

While coyotes usually hunt for food, they also scavenge which cleans up the environment. The presence of mesocarnivores such as skunks and raccoons has been known to have negative impacts on bird populations.

The presence of coyotes helps keep populations of these animals low so that bird populations can thrive, which has a positive impact on songbird and ground-nesting bird populations.