The South American coati, or ring-tailed coati (Nasua nasua), is a species of coati from tropical and subtropical South America. In Brazilian Portuguese it is known as quati. Weight in this species is 2–7.2 kg (4.4–16 lb) and total length is 85–113 cm (33–44 in), half of that being its tail. Its color is highly variable and the rings on the tail may be quite weak, but it lacks the largely white muzzle ("nose") of its northern cousin, the white-nosed coati.

The South American coati is widespread in tropical and substropical South America. Most of its distribution is in the lowlands east of the Andes (locally, it occurs as high as 2,500 m or 8,200 ft), from Colombia and The Guianas south to Uruguay and northern Argentina (Chile is the only South American country where the species is not found).

The status of coatis west of the Andes has caused some confusion, but specimen records from west Ecuador, and north and west Colombia are South American coatis. The only documented records of white-nosed coatis in South America are from far northwestern Colombia (Gulf of Urabá region, near Colombian border with Panama). The smaller mountain coatis are mainly found at altitudes above the South American coati, but there is considerable overlap.

South America (Spanish: América del Sur, Sudamérica, or Suramérica; Portuguese: América do Sul; Quechua and Aymara: Urin Awya Yala; Guarani: Ñembyamérika; Dutch: Zuid-Amerika; French: Amérique du Sud) is a continent located in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east by the Atlantic Ocean; North America and the Caribbean Sea lie to the northwest. It includes twelve independent countries—Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela—and French Guiana, which is an overseas region of France. The South American countries that border the Caribbean Sea—Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana—are also known as Caribbean South America.

South America has an area of 17,840,000 square kilometers (6,890,000 sq mi), which is slightly larger than Russia. Its population as of 2005 has been estimated at more than 371,090,000. South America ranks fourth in area (after Asia, Africa, and North America) and fifth in population (after Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America). The word America was coined in 1507 by cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann, after Amerigo Vespucci, who was the first European to suggest that the lands newly discovered by Europeans were not India, but a New World unknown to Europeans.

Coati Mundi is the stage name of American musician Andy Hernandez, percussionist, notably playing the vibraphone, and member of Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band, then of Kid Creole and the Coconuts. He scored the Top 40 UK hit "Me No Pop I" in 1981, just before the release of Tropical Gangsters. He produced and arranged an album by "Don Armando Second Avenue Rhumba Band", which spurred the disco hit song "Deputy of Love".

Hernandez is a first generation Puerto Rican who grew up in Spanish Harlem, New York City. As a young teenager, the first band he played and recorded with was called Eddie Hernandez & his Orchestra.

Andy Hernandez has worked with assorted musical groups and artists including Ralfi Pagan, Joe Bataan, Vernon Reid, N'Dea Davenport, Nona Hendryx, Tito Puente, Manny Oquendo & Conjunto Libre, Hall & Oates and Machito.

He was known as Sugarcoated Andy while in Dr. Buzzard's band and played vibes, marimba and percussion for them. Credits Stony Browder, August Darnell and Cory Daye of Dr. Buzzard's band as major influences.