# @downinnadesert on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DeNLeYKkl0p
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/71448721-downinnadesert-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/47b07389e4.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-10-07T20:06:55.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Down In The Desert🌵 (@downinnadesert) — https://gondola.cc/downinnadesert

## Caption

Arizona has a raccoon relative that is rarely seen anywhere else in the U.S., and it’s out during the day.

White-nosed coatis, also called coatimundis, live at Chiricahua National Monument in southeastern Arizona. The U.S. Department of the Interior highlighted them in a video on Sept. 29 showing a band crossing a park road. The National Park Service says coatimundis there are social animals seen throughout the monument during the day. Unlike their cousins the raccoon and the ringtail, they aren’t nocturnal.

Females and their young travel and forage together in bands, while males are usually solitary and join the females during mating season. They eat insects, reptiles, bird eggs, carrion, fruit and nuts. In fall and winter, bands are often spotted at lower elevations, around Silver Spur Meadow and the Bonita Canyon Campground. Because bands often cross park roads, the Park Service asks drivers to slow down.

Coatimundis are fairly new to the state’s record books. The earliest U.S. sighting on record is from Fort Huachuca in 1892. A 2022 study of Arizona sighting records tracked their spread north over the past century, with sightings now as far north as Flagstaff.

The monument is a sky island with 71 species of mammals and 171 species of birds, and the Park Service says coatimundis are rarely seen elsewhere in the state or country.

If you go, keep your distance and don’t feed them. Feeding wildlife is unlawful in Arizona’s largest counties, and rabies, though rare, has been reported in coatimundis.

Chiricahua is also one presidential signature away from becoming Arizona’s fourth national park.

Source: U.S. Department of the Interior

#Chiricahua #Arizona #ArizonaWildlife #Coatimundi #ArizonaNews

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## Tags

chiricahua, arizonanews, arizona, arizonawildlife, coatimundi

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