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| Coyote, Canis latrans |
Coyotes survived.
They survived the climatic upheaval at the end of the Pleistocene, the collapse of large-animal communities and the loss of many of the predators and prey species that had shared their world.
Later, they survived persecution, poisoning, trapping, expanding cities, fragmented habitats and the arrival of freeways.
Today, coyotes still move through Los Angeles. They trot along drainage corridors, cross residential streets, shelter in patches of urban vegetation and appear on security cameras looking remarkably composed for animals trespassing beneath a porch at three in the morning.
The city changed beyond recognition. The coyote remained.
Its great advantage was not enormous size, exceptional speed or a mouth filled with theatrical weaponry. It was flexibility. When the menu changed, the coyote changed with it. When habitats shifted, it moved. When competitors disappeared, it expanded. When humans remade the continent, the coyote examined our roads, farms, golf courses and suburbs and appears to have said, “We can work with this.”
THE COYOTES OF LA BREA
Coyotes are among the most common mammals preserved at the La Brea Tar Pits, although they are outnumbered by dire wolves and sabre-toothed cats.
During the Late Pleistocene, natural asphalt seeped to the surface in what is now central Los Angeles. Water, dust and leaves sometimes concealed the sticky deposits. Large herbivores became trapped, and their distress attracted predators and scavengers. Some of those animals stepped onto the same asphalt and joined the deposit themselves.
This predator-trap effect helps explain why carnivore fossils are so abundant at La Brea. A single trapped bison could attract several dire wolves, a sabre-toothed cat and any number of smaller opportunists prepared to investigate the commotion.
Coyotes were excellent candidates. They were hunters, scavengers and attentive observers of everyone else’s business.
The coyote fossils from La Brea are generally associated with the robust Late Pleistocene form traditionally called Canis latrans orcutti.
These Ice Age coyotes were not identical to the slender animals slipping through modern Los Angeles. They were larger, more powerfully built and equipped with deeper jaws and more strongly developed meat-shearing teeth.
They were, in short, rather more wolfish.
This was an animal living among formidable competitors. Dire wolves hunted large prey, sabre-toothed cats ambushed herbivores and American lions occupied the landscape. The Pleistocene coyote needed to find its place within this heavily armed carnivore guild while avoiding becoming lunch, competition or an accidental asphalt ornament.
A LARGER, TOUGHER ICE AGE COYOTE
Studies comparing Pleistocene coyotes with modern animals have found significant differences in skull and jaw anatomy.
The ancient coyotes had deeper, more robust lower jaws. Their carnassial teeth—the specialized slicing teeth used by carnivorous mammals—provided a relatively long shearing surface, while the grinding portion of the tooth row was less emphasized. This anatomy suggests a diet containing more meat and possibly larger prey than that of many modern coyotes.
The teeth also show evidence of heavy wear and breakage. That may indicate more frequent processing of bone, carcasses and large prey. Ice Age coyotes were not simply modern coyotes wearing heavier winter coats. They occupied a somewhat different ecological role.
Research led by palaeontologist Julie Meachen found that Pleistocene coyotes were larger and more robust than their Holocene descendants. Their reduction in body size occurred around the time of the end-Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions, when many of North America’s largest mammals disappeared.
A later study of coyote jaws found a corresponding shift in feeding anatomy. Pleistocene coyotes possessed features associated with greater carnivory and the processing of large prey, while modern animals have more gracile jaws and a greater capacity for grinding a varied diet.
The earliest Holocene coyotes were intermediate in form, providing a fascinating anatomical bridge between the Ice Age bruiser and the modern omnivorous survivor. The study was published in PLOS ONE.
When the large prey disappeared, the large coyote did not stubbornly insist that mammoth was still on the menu. It became smaller.
WHAT HAPPENED AT THE END OF THE ICE AGE?
The end of the Pleistocene brought sweeping ecological change to North America.
The climate warmed. Rainfall patterns shifted. Vegetation changed. Fire activity increased in some regions. Human populations spread across the continent. Meanwhile, many large mammals—including mammoths, mastodons, ground sloths, native horses, camels and ancient bison species—declined and vanished.
Large predators followed them into extinction. Dire wolves, sabre-toothed cats and American lions disappeared.
Coyotes did not.
The loss of megafauna would have removed carcasses and large prey from the landscape. A predator strongly dependent on those resources faced a crisis. For coyotes, however, the ecological transformation became an invitation to change.
Smaller prey remained abundant. Rabbits, hares, rodents, reptiles, birds and insects were still available. Carrion remained useful. Fruits and other plant foods could supplement the diet. A smaller body required fewer calories and made hunting smaller prey more efficient.
Natural selection does not require a species to plan for the future. Individual animals vary. Those whose bodies and behaviours work best under new conditions are more likely to survive and reproduce. Over generations, the population changes.
The modern coyote emerged from this altered world leaner, more lightly built and less dependent on large prey.
It traded specialization for options. The decision has served it exceedingly well.
WHAT DID LA BREA COYOTES EAT?
Pleistocene coyotes were more carnivorous than most modern populations, but they were probably never as specialized as the largest Ice Age predators.
Their robust jaws and enlarged meat-shearing surfaces suggest that they could process substantial quantities of flesh and bone. They may have hunted medium-sized animals, scavenged megafaunal carcasses and fed opportunistically around kills made by larger predators.
Stable-isotope analyses support a distinction between coyotes and the large carnivores at La Brea. Dire wolves, sabre-toothed cats and American lions appear to have relied heavily on large herbivores such as bison and camels. Coyotes show evidence of a broader, more omnivorous diet. They are not picky eaters.
This wider feeding niche may have buffered them when large prey populations collapsed.
A sabre-toothed cat was magnificently equipped to subdue large animals. A coyote was equipped to see what else might be available.
There is great evolutionary value in being willing to eat something no one else considers worth chasing.
WHAT DO COYOTES EAT TODAY?
Almost anything nutritious enough to justify the effort. Just like us, with less Doritos.
Coyotes are classified within the mammalian order Carnivora, but that does not mean they eat meat exclusively. They are opportunistic omnivores whose diets change with location, season and availability.
Their prey can include:
- Mice, voles and rats
- Rabbits and hares
- Ground squirrels
- Gophers
- Birds and eggs
- Snakes and lizards
- Frogs
- Fish
- Insects
- Carrion
- Young or vulnerable deer
- Fruit, berries and other plant material
They may also consume agricultural crops, pet food, compost and discarded human food when those resources are available. This does not mean garbage is their preferred natural diet. It means coyotes are observant and generally unwilling to let edible calories go to waste.
In the Santa Monica Mountains, studies found that coyotes fed primarily on native fruits and small mammals such as rabbits, mice and woodrats. Domestic pets represented less than one per cent of the measured diet. Natural prey and fruits form the majority of their food in this region.
Research in heavily fragmented parts of Los Angeles produced a similar result. Although urban coyotes consumed more human-associated material, their diet still consisted largely of natural prey and fruit. Domestic cats, including feral cats, made up about one per cent of the diet recorded in the most fragmented areas studied. The Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County uses these findings to separate the animal’s actual urban ecology from some of its more dramatic reputation.
Coyotes can prey on unattended small pets, and sensible precautions are important. But the average urban coyote is not spending every evening developing an elaborate scheme involving someone’s Pomeranian.
It is more likely looking for rodents, fallen fruit and an easy route back into cover.
WHERE DID COYOTES COME FROM?
The coyote, Canis latrans, belongs to the dog family, Canidae. Its deeper evolutionary story began long before the Ice Age.
Canids originated in North America more than 30 million years ago and evolved into a remarkable variety of forms. Some were small and fox-like. Others developed heavy jaws capable of crushing bone. Over time, members of the dog lineage spread into Eurasia, Africa and South America.
Coyote ancestry is associated with a group of increasingly wolf-like canids that appeared in North America during the later Neogene.
An extinct canid called Eucyon davisi lived in North America during the Miocene and Pliocene. It was a medium-sized, coyote-like animal and belonged near the ancestry of the genus Canis, although evolutionary relationships among fossil canids are continually reassessed as new material and genetic evidence become available.
By the Pliocene, a canid called Canis lepophagus—its name means “hare-eating dog”—was widespread across North America. It is frequently discussed as a possible close relative or ancestral form near the line leading toward coyotes and wolves.
Fossils recognizably attributed to Canis latrans appear by the Early Pleistocene, roughly one million years ago, although the precise boundaries between early coyotes and closely related fossil canids are debated. Later Pleistocene coyotes are known from sites across western and southern North America, including California, Idaho, Texas, Mexico and Central America.
Coyotes are therefore not recent arrivals on this continent. They are thoroughly North American animals with roots extending deep into the fossil record.
They did not come to the modern city. We built the modern city in their homeland.
WHO ARE THE COYOTE’S LIVING RELATIVES?
Coyotes are close relatives of wolves and domestic dogs. They share the family Canidae and are traditionally placed with grey wolves, dogs, jackals and several other canids in or near the genus Canis.
Their relationships are complicated because members of the wolf-like canid group diverged relatively recently in evolutionary terms and can sometimes interbreed. Coyotes have produced fertile hybrids with grey wolves and domestic dogs. Genetic exchange has occurred naturally where expanding coyote populations encountered wolves, particularly in eastern North America.
This does not mean every large eastern coyote is simply “half wolf,” nor does it make coyotes a vague mixture rather than a species. Populations have complex histories, and the proportion of wolf or dog ancestry varies geographically.
The relationships among coyotes, grey wolves, red wolves and eastern wolves remain subjects of scientific debate. Fossils, modern anatomy and genomic data do not always arrange themselves into a perfectly tidy family tree. Canid evolution is less a series of cleanly separated branches than a thicket in which some branches have occasionally leaned over and exchanged genes.
Dire wolves, despite their familiar name, were much more distantly related. Genetic research indicates that dire wolves belonged to an ancient American canid lineage that had been separate from the ancestors of living wolves and coyotes for millions of years. They are now commonly placed in the genus Aenocyon as Aenocyon dirus.
The dire wolf was a large grey wolf, and it was not the coyote’s oversized sibling.
It represented another evolutionary experiment—one that ended while the coyote lineage continued.
WHERE DO COYOTES LIVE?
Coyotes were once associated primarily with the grasslands, prairies and deserts of central and western North America. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, however, they dramatically expanded their range.
They moved north into boreal regions, east through forests and agricultural landscapes, west into coastal habitats and south through Mexico into Central America. Today, coyotes occupy nearly every part of continental North America and extend well into Central America.
A 2018 study mapping their expansion found that the process accelerated around 1900. Forest clearing, agricultural development and the removal of larger predators such as wolves helped open new habitat. Roads, railways and fragmented landscapes also created corridors through which coyotes could travel.
Coyotes now live in:
- Deserts
- Prairies
- Grasslands
- Mountain valleys
- Shrublands
- Forests
- Coastal environments
- Agricultural regions
- Suburbs
- Major cities
The Smithsonian’s Movement of Life project describes coyotes as having pronounced behavioural, dietary and physical plasticity. Their ability to adjust to changing landscapes has allowed them to spread from the Great Plains into most of Canada and Central America.
The coyote’s preferred habitat appears to be wherever it can find food, cover and a reasonable chance of not being bothered.
That leaves rather a lot of the continent.
HOW DO COYOTES LIVE?
Coyotes are socially flexible as well as dietary generalists.
They may live alone, as mated pairs or in family groups. Their social structure changes according to food supply, habitat and population density. A pair may defend a territory together and raise pups, while older offspring sometimes remain temporarily with their parents.
Coyotes generally breed once each year. Pups are born in dens that may be dug by the coyotes themselves or adapted from burrows made by other animals. Both parents can contribute to feeding and protecting the young.
Their famous vocalizations help maintain social bonds and communicate territorial ownership. A few coyotes can sound like a much larger group because their howls, yips and barks overlap and change in pitch.
The result is known as the beau geste effect: a small number of animals produces the auditory impression of an entire coyote convention taking place just beyond the trees.
Coyotes also adjust their daily schedules. In regions with little human activity, they may be active during daylight. In cities and suburbs, they often become more nocturnal, moving when streets and public spaces are quieter.
They do not need to understand urban planning.
They need only learn when we go inside.
THE COYOTE IN MODERN LOS ANGELES
Los Angeles has changed profoundly since Ice Age coyotes became trapped at La Brea.
Woodlands and open country have been replaced or divided by homes, roads, businesses and freeways. Large native herbivores no longer move through central Los Angeles, and asphalt now covers the ground intentionally.
Coyotes adapted.
They travel along river channels, railway corridors, utility routes, park edges and strips of vegetation. They use culverts and underpasses. They rest in surprisingly small patches of cover and cross developed areas during quieter hours.
Research shows that many urban coyotes continue to prefer natural or semi-natural habitat whenever it is available. They do not necessarily choose dense development. Instead, they learn to navigate through it.
This distinction matters. A coyote seen in a neighbourhood is not automatically dependent on human food or unusually aggressive. It may simply be moving between hunting areas.
The city presents opportunities but also serious risks. Coyotes are struck by vehicles, exposed to rodenticides, injured by fencing and vulnerable to conflict when people intentionally or unintentionally feed them.
Their survival in urban landscapes should not be mistaken for an effortless life. Adaptable does not mean invulnerable.
WHY DIDN’T PEOPLE ELIMINATE THEM?
Coyotes have endured centuries of deliberate control efforts, including trapping, shooting and poisoning.
Yet broad campaigns to eliminate them have repeatedly failed.
Their mobility allows individuals to recolonize vacant territories. Their flexible social structure helps populations reorganize. Food availability and population density can influence reproduction and survival. Remove coyotes from suitable habitat and, if the resources remain, others may eventually move in.
Human changes to the landscape have also favoured them in unexpected ways. The removal of wolves reduced an important competitor and predator. Forest clearing created open habitat supporting rodents and rabbits. Agricultural lands and suburbs supplied new food resources and travel corridors.
The National Park Service notes that the combination of wolf removal, habitat change, a flexible diet and high reproductive capacity allowed coyotes to thrive despite extensive control efforts.
We attempted to remove the coyote while repeatedly redesigning the continent in its favour.
The coyote noticed.
SPECIALISTS, GENERALISTS AND THE ART OF SURVIVAL
The survival of coyotes does not mean specialists are poorly evolved.
A specialist can be superbly adapted to a stable environment. Sabre-toothed cats were powerfully constructed to capture large prey. Dire wolves were highly effective carnivores within Pleistocene ecosystems. Their success lasted for hundreds of thousands of years.
The problem arrives when the environment changes faster than the specialist can respond.
Generalists are not necessarily the strongest, fastest or most efficient animals in any one category. Their advantage lies in having alternatives. If one prey species declines, they can hunt another. If one habitat disappears, they can use a different one. If a familiar food becomes scarce, they can investigate something new.
Coyotes retained that flexibility while also changing physically. As the megafaunal world ended, their descendants became smaller and developed jaws better suited to a broader diet.
Survival was not a matter of simply remaining unchanged.
The coyote survived because it could become a different kind of coyote.
THE COYOTE REMAINED
The coyotes whose bones lie within the La Brea asphalt lived in a world of mammoths, camels, giant ground sloths, dire wolves and sabre-toothed cats.
They were larger than today’s coyotes, with stronger jaws and teeth adapted for a more carnivorous diet. They scavenged from large carcasses and competed in a landscape ruled by formidable predators.
Then that world came apart.
The large herbivores disappeared. The great predators vanished after them. Vegetation changed, climates shifted and humans transformed the continent.
The coyote grew smaller, broadened its diet and carried on.
Today, its descendants eat rodents beneath fruit trees, travel along concrete drainage channels and cross streets laid over the bones of their Ice Age relatives.
The asphalt seeps at La Brea preserved coyotes from a lost ecosystem. Beyond the park, living coyotes continue to move through the same landscape, altered almost beyond recognition.
Dire wolves vanished. Sabre-toothed cats vanished. American lions, western camels, native horses and giant ground sloths vanished from the region.
The coyote remained—not because it resisted change, but because it was exceptionally good at changing with it.
REFERENCES
Hody, J. W., & Kays, R. (2018). Mapping the expansion of coyotes (Canis latrans) across North and Central America. ZooKeys, 759, 81–97. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.759.15149
Meachen, J. A., Janowicz, A. C., Avery, J. E., & Sadleir, R. W. (2014). Ecological changes in coyotes (Canis latrans) in response to the Ice Age megafaunal extinctions. PLOS ONE, 9(12), e116041. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0116041
Meachen, J. A., & Samuels, J. X. (2012). Evolution in coyotes (Canis latrans) in response to the megafaunal extinctions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(11), 4191–4196. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1113788109
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Wilson, P. J., Rutledge, L. Y., Wheeldon, T. J., Patterson, B. R., & White, B. N. (2021). Considering Pleistocene North American wolves and coyotes in the eastern Canis origin story. Ecology and Evolution, 11, 9137–9147. Open-access article
La Brea Tar Pits. “Mammal Collections.” Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County. https://tarpits.org/research-collections/tar-pits-collections/mammal-collections
National Park Service. “Coyotes.” Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Updated May 24, 2022. https://www.nps.gov/samo/learn/nature/coyotes.htm
National Park Service. “Carnivores: Coyote.” Mount Rainier National Park. Updated March 11, 2025. https://www.nps.gov/mora/learn/nature/carnivores.htm
Ordeñana, M. “Coyotes of L.A.’s Urban Core: Using Science to Separate Fact from Fiction.” Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. https://nhm.org/stories/coyotes-las-urban-core-using-science-separate-fact-fiction
Smithsonian Institution. “Coyote: Canis latrans.” Movement of Life. https://movementoflife.si.edu/species/coyote/
