Coyote Paw 09.13.24


While I have collected a lot of loose bones and a number of complete skeletons, one of the best bones I have ever found was the first I ever took. This is the paw from a roadkill coyote. I found the coyote, already decomposed, in what appeared to be a dumping area for dead animals. I assume it was roadkill because its skull and a number of ribs were all fractured on the left side. This paw, however, shows that this coyote has suffered some sort of ankle injury but had survived long enough for the bones to fuse. I suspect that it was probably in quite a bit of pain and struggled because it would not have been able to bend its ankle or presumably put weight on it. Just goes to show the survivability and adaptability of coyotes. If I had to guess I would say that this injury was most likely from an ankle trap that it managed to escape from or a grazing from a car.