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Skunk ( Gardenia Skunk )
Skunks
are medium-sized
mammals with black-and-white-fur
belonging to the
family Mephitidae and the
order
Carnivora. There are 11 species of skunks, which are divided into four
genera:
Mephitis (hooded and striped skunks,
two species),
Spilogale (spotted skunks, two species),
Mydaus (stink badgers, two species),
and
Conepatus (hog-nosed
skunks, five species). The two skunk species in the Mydaus genus
inhabit
Indonesia and the
Philippines; all other skunks inhabit
the Americas from
Canada to central
South America.
Skunks are sometimes called
polecats because of their visual similarity to the
European polecat (Mustela putorius), a member of the
Mustelidae family.
Description
Skunk species vary in size from
about 40 cm to 70 cm and in weight from about 0.5 kg (the spotted skunks) to 4.5
kg (the
hog-nosed skunks) They have a moderately elongated body with reasonably
short, well-muscled legs, and long front
claws for digging.
Although the most common fur
color is black and white, some skunks are brown or gray, and a few are
cream-colored. All skunks are striped, however, even from birth. They may have a
single thick stripe across back and tail, two thinner stripes, or a series of
white spots and broken stripes (in the case of the spotted skunk). Some also
have stripes on their legs.
Behavior
Skunks are
nocturnal. They are best-known for their ability to spray a foul-smelling
and sticky fluid as a defense against predators; this secretion comes from the
anal scent glands. The odor of the fluid is strong enough to ward off
bears and other potential attackers. The odor can be difficult to remove
from a human's clothing.
Skunks are
solitary animals when not breeding, but may gather together to keep warm in
communal dens in the coldest part of their range. During the day they shelter in
burrows that they dig with their powerful front claws, or in other man-made or
natural hollows as the opportunity arises. Both sexes occupy overlapping home
ranges through the greater part of the year; typically 2 to 4 km˛ for females,
up to 20 km˛ for males.
Skunks do not hibernate in the
winter. However they do remain generally inactive and feed rarely. They often
overwinter in a huddle of one male and multiple (as many as twelve) females. The
same winter den will be repeatedly re-used.
Feeding
Skunks are
omnivorous, eating both plant and animal material but mostly
meat. They eat
invertebrates (insects
and their
larvae, found by digging, and
worms) as well as small
vertebrate (rodents,
lizards,
salamanders,
frogs,
snakes,
birds and
eggs). In the wild, skunks
forage for food, and in settled areas also seek human garbage.
Reproduction
Breeding usually takes place in
early spring. Females excavate a den ready for between one and four young to be
born in May. The male plays no part in raising the young and may even kill them.
A common scene in late spring and summer is a mother skunk followed by a line of
her kits. By late July or August the young disperse. When the young skunks meet
again, they raise their tails vertically. After a little posturing they start to
rub against each other, often rolling around in what appears to be an embrace.
Older skunks seem less friendly to the young kits.
Although they have excellent
senses of smell and hearing—vital attributes in a nocturnal carnivore—they have
poor vision. They cannot see objects more than about 3 metres away with any
clarity, which makes them very vulnerable to road
traffic. Roughly half of all skunk deaths are caused by humans, as
roadkill, or as a result of shooting and
poisoning. They are short-lived animals: fewer than 10% survive for longer
than three years.
The best-known and most
distinctive feature of the skunks is the great development of their scent
glands, which they can use as a defensive weapon. They have two glands, on
either side of the anus, that produce a mixture of
sulfur-containing chemicals (methyl
and
butyl
mercaptans) that has a highly offensive smell. Muscles located next to the
scent glands allow them to spray with high accuracy as far as 2 to 3 metres (7
to 10 ft). The smell aside, the spray can cause irritation and even temporary
blindness, and is sufficiently powerful to be detected by even an insensitive
human nose anywhere up to a mile downwind. Their chemical defense, though
unusual, is effective.
Because skunks have only enough
scent for 5 or 6 "reloads" —about 1 tablespoon (15 grams)—and take a couple of
days to refill their scent glands, they are reluctant to expend their
"ammunition". This is presumably why skunks have such bold black and white
colouring: to ensure they are as visible and as memorable as possible. Where
practical, it is to a skunk's advantage to simply warn a threatening creature
off without expending scent: the black and white warning colour aside,
threatened skunks will go through an elaborate routine of hisses and foot
stamping and tail-high threat postures before expelling a shower of scent.
Interestingly, skunks will not spray other skunks (with the exception of males
in the mating season); though they fight over den space in autumn, they do so
with tooth and claw.
The musk-spraying ability of the
skunk has not escaped the attention of biologists: the name of the most common
species, Mephitis mephitis, means "stench stench", and Spilogale
putorius means "stinking spotted weasel". The word skunk is a
corruption of an
Abenaki name for them, segongw or segonku, which means "one
who squirts" in the
Algonquian dialect.
Most
predatory animals of the Americas, such as
wolves,
foxes and
badgers, seldom attack skunks – presumably out of fear of being sprayed. The
exception is the
great horned owl, the animal's only serious predator (which, being a
bird, has a poor-to-nonexistent sense of smell).
Skunks are closely related to the
weasel group and although they are now generally classfied as a separate
family within the same order, some taxonomists still place them as a subfamily
of the Mustelidae.
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