Once coyotes form a pair, they sometimes bond for life. In a pack, the alpha female usually bears the young, but other adults help with the pup-rearing. Lower-ranking coyotes play with newborns, aid with food gathering, and frequently guard the den. If the parents are killed, these surrogate parents will raise the pups to adulthood. Coyotes can live as long as 10 years, but they often don't survive past their third year, due to predation.
Coyotes can subsist on virtually any type of food.
In some places, though, they have become insectivores, feeding on grasshoppers, beetles, and grubs. They also eat snakes and lizards and frogs. In cities they dine on rats and house cats. In rural areas a pack will work together to bring down an elk. There has been at least one documented coyote-killed bison.