Western Mountain Coati

The western mountain coati, also called the western dwarf coati (Nasuella olivacea), is a small member of the raccoon family Procyonidae that lives in the cloud forests and high paramo grasslands of the northern Andes, at altitudes of roughly 1,300 to 4,250 metres in Colombia and Ecuador. A population in southern Peru has tentatively been identified with it but may be a separate, undescribed form. Until 2009 it was treated together with the eastern mountain coati as a single mountain coati; the western animal is larger, with larger teeth and a more reddish or blackish coat that usually lacks a dark stripe along the back. Two subspecies are recognised, Nasuella olivacea olivacea in Colombia and the smaller, darker N. o. quitensis in Ecuador, and the IUCN rates the species Near Threatened.