The coyote is listed as least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, due to its wide distribution and abundance throughout North America.

Primarily carnivorous, its diet consists mainly of deer, rabbits, hares, rodents, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates, though it may also eat fruits and vegetables on occasion.

[7] The largest coyote on record was a male killed near Afton, Wyoming, on November 19, 1937, which measured 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) from nose to tail, and weighed 34 kg (75 lb).

[7] At the time of the European colonization of the Americas, coyotes were largely confined to open plains and arid regions of the western half of the continent.

[19]The coyote was first scientifically described by naturalist Thomas Say in September 1819, on the site of Lewis and Clark's Council Bluffs, 24 km (15 mi) up the Missouri River from the mouth of the Platte during a government-sponsored expedition with Major Stephen Long.

[4]The first published usage of the word "coyote" (which is a Spanish borrowing of its Nahuatl name coyōtl pronunciationⓘ) comes from the historian Francisco Javier Clavijero's Historia de México in 1780.

The coyote represents a more primitive form of Canis than the gray wolf, as shown by its relatively small size and its comparatively narrow skull and jaws, which lack the grasping power necessary to hold the large prey in which wolves specialize.

The coyote, unlike the wolf, is not a specialized carnivore, as shown by the larger chewing surfaces on the molars, reflecting the species' relative dependence on vegetable matter.

[54] Pleistocene coyotes were likely more specialized carnivores than their descendants, as their teeth were more adapted to shearing meat, showing fewer grinding surfaces suited for processing vegetation.

[57] In 2016, a whole-genome DNA study proposed, based on the assumptions made, that all of the North American wolves and coyotes diverged from a common ancestor about 51,000 years ago.

[28][64] Geographic variation in coyotes is not great, though taken as a whole, the eastern subspecies (C. l. thamnos and C. l. frustor) are large, dark-colored animals, with a gradual paling in color and reduction in size westward and northward (C. l. texensis, C. l. latrans, C. l. lestes, and C. l. incolatus), a brightening of 'ochraceous' tones – deep orange or brown – towards the Pacific coast (C. l. ochropus, C. l. umpquensis), a reduction in size in Aridoamerica (C. l. microdon, C. l. mearnsi) and a general trend towards dark reddish colors and short muzzles in Mexican and Central American populations.

By the age of four to six weeks, when their milk teeth are fully functional, the pups are given small food items such as mice, rabbits, or pieces of ungulate carcasses, with lactation steadily decreasing after two months.

[95][90] Like wolves, coyotes use a den, usually the deserted holes of other species, when gestating and rearing young, though they may occasionally give birth under sagebrushes in the open.

Some dens have been found under abandoned homestead shacks, grain bins, drainage pipes, railroad tracks, hollow logs, thickets, and thistles.

[106] The relationship between the two species may occasionally border on apparent "friendship", as some coyotes have been observed laying their heads on their badger companions or licking their faces without protest.

With the extermination of the wolf, the coyote's range expanded to encompass broken forests from the tropics of Guatemala and the northern slope of Alaska.

Prey species include bison (largely as carrion), white-tailed deer, mule deer, moose, elk, bighorn sheep, pronghorn, rabbits, hares, rodents, birds (especially galliformes, roadrunners, young water birds and pigeons and doves), amphibians (except toads), lizards, snakes, turtles and tortoises, fish, crustaceans, and insects.

[27] Terrestrial animals or burrowing small mammals such as ground squirrels and associated species (marmots, prairie dogs, chipmunks) as well as voles, pocket gophers, kangaroo rats and other ground-favoring rodents may be quite common foods, especially for lone coyotes.

It sometimes eats unusual items such as cotton cake, soybean meal, domestic animal droppings, beans, and cultivated grain such as maize, wheat, and sorghum.

[147] At kill sites and carrion, coyotes, especially if working alone, tend to be dominated by wolves, cougars, bears, wolverines and, usually but not always, eagles (i.e., bald and golden).

These two similarly-sized species rarely physically confront one another, though bobcat populations tend to diminish in areas with high coyote densities.

[168] Due to the coyote's wide range and abundance throughout North America, it is listed as Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

By this time, its range encompassed the entire North American continent, including all of the contiguous United States and Mexico, southward into Central America, and northward into most of Canada and Alaska.

From the 1890s, dense forests were transformed into agricultural land and wolf control implemented on a large scale, leaving a niche for coyotes to disperse into.

[173] Among large North American carnivores, the coyote probably carries the largest number of diseases and parasites, likely due to its wide range and varied diet.

[179] Unlike the gray wolf, which has undergone a radical improvement of its public image, Anglo-American cultural attitudes towards the coyote remain largely negative.

41-54) There have been only two confirmed fatal attacks: one on three-year-old Kelly Keen in Glendale, California[185] and another on nineteen-year-old singer-songwriter Taylor Mitchell in Nova Scotia, Canada.

In such situations, some coyotes have begun to act aggressively toward humans, chasing joggers and bicyclists, confronting people walking their dogs, and stalking small children.

When attacking smaller prey, such as young lambs, the kill is made by biting the skull and spinal regions, causing massive tissue and bone damage.

[216] A tame coyote named "Butch", caught in the summer of 1945, had a short-lived career in cinema, appearing in Smoky (1946) and Ramrod (1947) before being shot while raiding a henhouse.