Feeding encounters between a group of howler monkeys and white-nosed coatis in a small forest fragment in Los Tuxtlas, Mexico

Abstract

Interactions between sympatric species are of particular interest for understanding the mechanisms that allow animal coexistence in the ecological community. The mantled howler monkey (Alouatta palliata Gray) and the white-nosed coati (Nasua narica Linnaeus) are similar-sized mammals with a sympatric distribution in the Neotropics (Nowak 1999). Since these two species are partly frugivorous (howler, Crockett & Eisenberg 1987; coati, Gompper 1997), and fruit is often limited (Laurance et al. 2003), howlers and coatis might be observed foraging from the same fruiting tree, but there is no information regarding this possibility. We studied the feeding encounters between these two species in a small forest fragment, and discuss the conditions under which these episodes occur.