Wild Fact #776 – Do You Smell That? – Striped Skunk
Photo Courtesy of http://bbs.chinadaily.com
I am going to assume that everyone had an amazing Canada Day. I hope my non-Canadian friends had a great day yesterday as well. We are going to end this shortened work week with a Wild Fact that stinks. No I really mean it, we are talking about the Striped Skunk today.
The Striped Skunk can be found throughout most of North America and carries a strong stench with it wherever they go. In fact the odour that they produce can be smelled from a kilometer away. I guess that isn’t that impressive since I can be smelled from 2 kilometers away after my annual camping weekend with the guys. The skunks pungent odour is created by a thick, yellow, oily fluid or musk and is secreted by two glands located at the base of their tail. This musk is only discharged as a last ditch effort to thwart a potential enemy. The striped skunk will growl and hiss at you long before spraying. Heck, they will even try walking on their front legs with their tail raised to scare you. So you know the Striped Skunk does not spray in this position. They will need to put their body in a U-Shape so its face and tail are facing the attacker. At this point they can spray their musk up to a distance of 6 m (18′) and are incredibly accurate within a 3 m (9′) range. The smell of the skunk is so bad that the skunk itself can’t stand it so they won’t use this defense mechanism in a confined space but I am not brave enough to test that theory.
The Striped Skunk will feed on a wide variety of food including insects, rodents, baby rabbits, bird eggs and plants. They are especially fond of grasshoppers, crickets and cutworms but they will also feed on bees and wasps. They are the true definition of an omnivore. By autumn the skunk has put on a nice layer of fat and are ready to begin hibernating in one of their deep dens. Some dens have been known to have 20 skunks curled up together but it is usually less than that. Typically the female and babies will head to the den when the temperature reaches zero degrees Celsius. The males will join in with their family or den alone once the temperature drops to minus ten degrees Celsius. I wish I could start to hibernate once the temperature drops below zero degrees.
Well that does it for this stinky fact. Have a great weekend everyone!
