Sharman Russell
Breast Cancer is One Way to Look at the White-nosed Coati
As I walk a familiar trail near my home in southern New Mexico, a white-nosed coati crosses the path about fifty feet ahead, angling through a field of grama grass. Common in the tropics, these animals have been traveling up through Mexico for the last hundred years and are now considered native to the American Southwest. An omnivore the size and weight of a large housecat, coatis (Nasua narica) have long white noses in a masked face, long banded tails and coats in varying shades of brown, blonde, and auburn.