Mike in the Wild

I remember each time I've ever seen a coati - or coatimundi - in the wild.  F or close to thirty years i t's been an easy number to recollect: one.  At least that's where the count languished until this past weekend, when my lifetime sightings dramatically increased to three!    This relative of the raccoon is not nearly as common as that masked cousin which ranges over most of North America.  The coati is far-ranging himself, but throughout Latin America; the only areas in the United States where he resides are in Arizona and New Mexico.  He has been spotted as far north as Spur Cross Ranch, north of Phoenix, but the species is more often seen in the southern Arizona sky islands, where Sierra Madre habitat thrives high above surrounding desert environments.   My long-ago first sighting was in Chiricahua National Monument in the far southeastern corner of the Grand Canyon State.  I was camping in the park and was on a shuttle bus that too...