This animal, which frequents the woods of South America, resembles the
raccoon, but is smaller. He is in the habit of rooting under trees, and
thus overturns many of them, even those of large size. The most curious
incident in his history, is that he eats his own tail! This is
explained by Godman as follows: "The extreme length of its tail, in
which the blood circulates but feebly, exposes it to the influence of
cold or frost; and the exceedingly tormenting irritation produced
thereby leads the animal to gnaw and scratch the tail, to relieve the
excessive itching. The disease spreads, and the anguish induces the
coati to gnaw more furiously, and eventually its life is destroyed by
the extension of the inflammation and irritability to the spine."