These cute little guys were scampering all around when I visited Iguassu Falls in Brazil and Argentina.

I also saw them while travelling through Central America. To me, they look like super-skinny raccoons! Not surprisingly they are from the raccoon family.

With this ring tailed coati species, their colouring and ringed tails is very similar to that of the raccoons we find here at home in Canada.

Also called a coatimundi or pizote, these cute guys are fairly social, travelling in troops. They tend to live in the forest, but can live in grasslands and other climates. Some subspecies even live in the mountains. Equally adept at climbing or digging, they have impressive paws and are able to turn their wrists around to climb down trees head first!

As cute as they are, they can be pretty mean and have very sharp teeth – so don’t think about trying to have one as a pet.

Most common in Central and South America, you can actually find coatis in parts of the US as well – Texas, New Mexico and Arizona!