Ugly end for coyote in Bx.

A COYOTE spotted dead on the side of the Bronx River Parkway Wednesday morning was likely the same one seen roaming a playground near Boston Post Rd. hours earlier.

Verizon worker Nicholas Rukaj was on his way to work when he saw a motionless carcass on the side of Bronx River Parkway South around 6 a.m. near Bronx Park East, he said.

“The timeline fit to a tee,” said Rukaj, who added that it was the same color and size as one pictured in The News Thursday. “It was bigger than a dog, then I saw its face.”

The photos, taken by an amateur astronomer, had been shot three hours earlier and less than a mile away.

The wild dog met the same fate as Major the Coyote, which was honored with a statute at the southwest entrance to Van Cortlandt Park after it was fatally struck by a car while trying to cross the Major Deegan Expressway in 1995.

It was the city’s first coyote sighting in five decades.

Wild Dog Foundation President Frank Vincenti said coyotes are “usually pretty smart with roads.”

“But with the volume of traffic in New York City, getting nailed on the road is going to be a common occurrence because there are coyotes who are not in a pack that wander out into the road,” he said.