Coyotes, wolves and foxes, oh my!

Spotting a coyote is a novelty for some people, as this stealthy predator prefers to remain under the radar.

When people do see - or hear - a coyote the questions come pouring in.

One recent question comes from Jack Kramer of Lily Lake whose curiosity was piqued by the virtuoso coyotes he's heard.

"Knowing that coyotes are canines," writes Jack, "do they bark like dogs? I've heard their yip-yip sounds. Is that their equivalent of a bark? For that matter, do wolves bark?"

They do, indeed. The scientific name for coyote, Canis latrans, literally means "barking dog." Their big cousins, the wolves, also bark. Foxes, too, can bark up a storm.

Communication among wild dogs, or canids, is complex. It comprises vocalization - such as barking - scent, and behavior. Although we may catch a glimpse of a coyote or a fox and we may get a whiff of their musk, most noticeable to us is the noise they make. We hear coyotes when a passing siren sets off their caroling and we hear their raucous yipping in the dark of night. If we're lucky, we might hear the peculiar bark of a fox under cover of some brush.

Can you hear me now?

Barking is part of the broad spectrum of vocalization.

"[Canids] have the richest vocabulary of calls of all the carnivores," writes J. Willard of Indiana University. Biologists have analyzed a dozen or more variations of coyote vocalization. Among these, barking is a close-range communication tool.

"The [coyote] bark is usually associated with defense of den or pups, a warning to back off, a protest, threat or an actual attack," reports Mark Derr, author and journalist with a penchant for coyotes.

"Different barks express different emotions," Derr writes, "including loneliness, fear, distress, stress and pleasure, as well as a need for care among puppies and serve to alert other dogs, people or animals to changing external circumstances."

Barking also helps keep a comfortable social distance among canids. Willard explains that in addition to "snarling, growling, [and] hissing, barking tends to be a call of warning in all three species (the mother wolf may have a distinct 'warning bark' with which she warns pups away from danger) ... Calls used to decrease social distance, such as whining, mewling or whimpering, are generally related to calls used by infants to elicit parental care and usually express submission during courtship, greeting, or aggressive encounters."

What about the Fox Valley's ubiquitous mascot, the red fox? A study published in the journal Bioacoustics revealed some twenty categories of fox vocalizations, such as yell-barks, staccato barks, wow-wow barks, yodel barks, shrieks, screams, whines, and yell-whines - to name just a few! (Rumor has it that the fox statue on the Main Street Bridge in St. Charles will yodel bark at the stroke of midnight under a full moon ...)

The vocalization that sends chills down our spines, however, is the wolf howl. It begins slowly at a high pitch and continues with long, drawn out notes sliding mournfully up and down a scale. It's eerie, doleful and downright spooky. There are few people who wouldn't shudder at the sound.

Coyote howls are a bit different from wolves. Coyotes participate in group "yip-howls." They carry on with raucous yip-howl parties at all hours of the night. They seem to be having a grand time while making all this commotion, but the group yip-howl has a serious function: advertising territory and coordinating group hunting.

Do you smell what I smell?

Vocalizing is obvious to us humans because we can hear fairly well. But canids' premier form of communication - scent - eludes us. Our noses are woefully inadequate and cannot detect a fraction of what dogs can smell. Canids sniff incessantly - the better to smell you with - and to read their environment.

"Coyotes have noses second to none," claims outdoorsman Mark Jacklich. He uses the analogy of a visit to McDonald's to describe the power of coyote's nose.

"When a human goes into McDonald's and sniffs the air, he smells a Big Mac. When a coyote smells a Big Mac, it smells the whole thing - two patties, special sauce, cheese, pickle and a sesame seed bun. The coyote can individualize every scent."

Dogs have numerous scent glands, particularly around the head and under the tail. "Mutual sniffing, first of the head and then of the anogenital regions, is characteristic of meetings between canids," according to Willard. This greeting can be embarrassing for the dog owner whose pet greets a human guest by thrusting a curious nose in private places! The dog is not intentionally rude, it's behaving like any curious canid would.

Unique calling cards

Since canids' sense of smell is so well developed, it stands to reason that dogs must also be good at leaving scent. Wild canids are masters at scent-marking by urinating, defecating, and ground scratching. Anal scent glands are particularly potent in wild canids and when feces are passed, the scent glands release their contents, thereby sending messages with the messenger. Coyote and fox droppings, or scat, are deliberately placed smack dab in the middle of trails as calling cards. Coyote and fox thus advertise their whereabouts, their amorous intentions, their position in the pack, territorial boundaries, and other messages which we humans may never know.

Scent left by urine is, of course, something we can't detect but our dogs can surely smell. According to Willard, "all [canid] species scent-mark territorially, primarily by spraying urine on the object of interest. Familiar landmarks are routinely sprayed on a 'patrol' around the territory, but if something new or interesting appears it may be sprayed to indicate ownership by the spraying animal." (Who needs a cell phone when you can lift a leg instead?)

Who do they do that?

Then there's that confounding habit of some dogs - domestic and wild - to roll in rank-smelling stuff. Of my four dogs, I've got a consummate roller, and believe me it's tough to stomach the fragrance that fills my van after a jaunt in the field!

Many exasperated dog owners ask, "Why do dogs do this?" Willard explains that "scent-rolling is a peculiarity of canids which is thought to be a means of bringing information about interesting scents back to conspecifics which may not have accompanied the animal to the odoriferous site. All canids scent-roll to some degree: the animal first puts its nose in the smell and then slips down onto one shoulder, sliding first one flank through the smell and then the other, pausing in the middle to vigorously rub its back into the scent. Given the usual pattern of social sniffing, i.e., starting at the head and moving down the flank to the tail, a greeting animal would get a good sniff of everything the other animal had rolled in on its way from one end to the other."

Coyotes and their canid compatriots fascinate and intrigue us with the complexity of their communication. From barking to howling and rolling to - ahem! - eliminating, dogs send and receive messages. Keep an eye on that Wile E. Coyote, though. You never know when he'll learn to IM!

• Naturalist Valerie Blaine dances with wolves, sings with coyotes, and runs with her dogs. She welcomes your comments and questions at blainevalerie@kaneforest.com.

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