[5] Its color is highly variable and the rings on the tail may be only somewhat visible, but its most distinguishing characteristic is that it lacks the largely white snout (or "nose") of its northern relative, the white-nosed coati.

It occurs in the lowland forests east of the Andes as high as 2,500 m (8,200 ft) from Colombia and The Guianas south to Uruguay and northern Argentina.

[9][10] The only documented records of white-nosed coati in South America are from far northwestern Colombia, in the Gulf of Urabá region, near the Colombian border with Panama.

[12] This implies that this species cannot be imported, bred, transported, commercialized, or intentionally released into the environment in the entire European Union.

Also, they search for fruit in trees high in the canopy and use their snouts to poke through crevices to find animal prey on the ground.

[14] Solitary males were originally considered a separate species due to their different social habits and were called coatimundis, a term still sometimes used today.

[16] Group members can produce soft whining sounds, but alarm calls are different, consisting of loud woofs and clicks.