July 29, 2006

Canis

Canis latrans paid us a brief backyard visit this morning before it disappeared under our jaunty shed and left us wondering whether it may have taken up residence there. Out west where I saw my last one over fifty years ago, we called them coyotes and held to the TexMex pronunciation, ky-YOTE-tee.

The ranchers, whose bane they were, liked to argue about which was the smartest predator, the coyote or the wildcat. We were budding geologists in those mid-century days mapping the outcropping edge of the Permian Basin in the Salt Draw quadrangle [west of Pecos, east of Van Horn, south of the Guadalupe Mountains, north of the Big Bend Country] and gullible for all the west Texas lore we could swallow. One story told of a coyote chewing off its leg to get free of a trap. No cat would ever think of that, some ranchers claimed. We wondered, but never dared ask, if maybe cats were a tad bright for that sort of thing or were so arrogantly independent that they would surely figure another way. On either side of the main gates to some ranches, one could frequently see the hides of both hanging on the barbed wire [aka “bob war”]. There were usually more coyotes than wildcats.

Like jackals and wolves, coyotes are members of the dog family [canis latrans = barking dog]. Like ballet dancers, they are digitigrade, meaning they walk only with their toes touching the ground [ain’t Google grand?]. We’ve no idea what they’re doing in Tennessee. But having recently been reminded again of how the Canary Islands got their name, wonder whether there’re ever any over there.

As for our morning visitor, we now have an idea why all the neighborhood cats have gone, why the birds have come back, and whether all this is intelligent design or just happened.

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