Thursday, November 29, 2012

Herdin' Coatimundis

In yesterday's post, I joked about standing by the road with a Dos Equis to attract some coatimundis.  While I was browsing a shop along the road yesterday, Craig called out -- Becky, get over here fast! 

Bored with the whole idea of shopping, he'd sat down on the curb.  Look what came up to him!


Then there were five.


And then a herd came galloping towards us. The attack of the coatis!


Finally we saw the shopkeeper with his bag of torn tortillas.  He said 45 coatimundis to be exact!


It was feeding time at the zoo!


You got something for me?


Take a picture!  It lasts longer!



And as quickly as they showed up, they began slinking back into the jungle.


Here's the quote explanation from Wikipedia of what coatis are:

Coatis, genera Nasua and Nasuella, also known as Brazilian aardvarks,[1] Mexican tejón, hog-nosed coons,[2] pizotes, Panamanian gatosolos, crackoons and snookum bears, are members of the raccoon family (Procyonidae). They are diurnal mammals native to South America, Central America, and south-western North America. The word "coatimundi" (play /kˌɑːtɨˈmʌndi/) is a commonly used misnomer applied to solitary adult males of N. nasua.[citation needed] The term is reported to be derived from the Tupi language (Brazil).[3]

Personally, I like the term snookum bears.  Ha!

6 comments:

Ann said...

Amazing! Those photos are great!

krisla said...

wow...I am not familiar with those creatures...are they in the raccoon family? cute, but could be nasty?

Babs said...

Yup, thats what that rascal looked like when it was standing on my kitchen counter eating sugar a couple of years ago.
I had NO idea what it was. I knew they are here, but not THAT many.
Your photos are cuter then what mine looked like in the spotlight of the flashlight at 2AM.

Life's a Beach! said...

Babs, too funny! Kris, I think they're in the raccoon family. The highlighted word in the post is a link to Wikipedia. I'd never seen one until we were in Belize. There the beach vendors usually had one tied up to the stand and tourists could pay to have a photo of it. There are also mapaches, which is what the shopkeeper said we probably saw looking out at us from the jungle the first night. We haven't seen one of those in broad daylight. Ann, they were all over us, so it wasn't hard to get photos!

Janet said...

Becky, that is so cool!! Also something new learned, they do remind me of racoons, but to come right up to you, acts like a squirrel, but you definately can see they are in the racoon family.

Lynda & Lawrie said...

Love Coatimundis .... wish they were still around on Isla. And Snookum bears, best name yet! Great pics as always Becky. I have one of you and Craig from Thanksgiving at Qubano on Isla. Can it put it on FaceBook? Cheers Lynda