The Striped Skunk, Mephitis mephitis, is an omnivorous mammal of the skunk family Mephitidae. Found over most of the North American continent north of Mexico, it is one of the best-known mammals in Canada and the United States.
The Striped Skunk has a black body with a white stripe along each side of its body; the two stripes join into a broader white area at the nape. Its forehead has a narrow white stripe. About the size of a house cat, it weighs 2.5 to 14 pounds (1.2–6.3 kg) with a body length (excluding the tail) of 13 to 18 inches (33–46 cm). The bushy tail is 7 to 10 inches long (18–25 cm), and sometimes has a white tip.
The presence of a Striped Skunk is often first made apparent by its odor. It has well-developed anal scent glands (characteristic of all skunks) that can emit a highly unpleasant odor when the skunk feels threatened by another animal.
The skunk is crepuscular. Beginning its search for food at dawn and dusk, it feeds on mice, eggs, carrion, insects, grubs, and berries. At sunrise, it retires to its den, which may be in a ground burrow, or beneath a building, boulder, or rock pile. While the male dens by itself, several females may live together. The Striped Skunk does not hibernate.
In February or March, mating occurs, and by early May, after a 42- to 63-day gestation, a litter of about five or six young is born. The young are born blind, and follow their mother until late June or July.
The Striped Skunk is beneficial as a consumer of rodent and insect populations, rarely eating farmers’ poultry. The species can be domesticated as a pet in the United States (not all states), Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy.
It is a very distinctive animal even aside from the scent.
Skunks are omnivorous, eating both plant and animal materials, and will change their diet as the seasons change and different foods become available to them. They will eat insects, larvae, earth worms, as well as eggs, berries, roots, leaves and may also scavenge the kills of other animals. In urban areas they will also try to get indoors and will eat pet food or nearly anything that is found.
Pet owners of cats, may find a skunk working its way into a garage or basement where pet food is kept. Skunks tend to be gluttons and will eat nearly anything and as muc of it as they can get.
Although they have excellent senses of smell and hearing they have very bad vision, and can’t see anything that is more than three or four feet away from them, which makes them prime candidates for roadway accidents, which is in fact how most of them are killed. Roughly half of their deaths are caused by humans and because of this, in the wild they tend to be very short lived, with most of them not making it past three years, although in captivity they may live as long as ten.
Breeding usually takes place in early spring when the female will make a den, where she has four to six young skunks which are usually born in May after a gestation of about 2 months. The young are called kits.
When they are born they are furred, but only a very thin soft layer and are blind and deaf. It takes about three weeks for the kits eyes to open and their fur to come in. The male skunk takes no part in raising them and will often kill them to bring the female back into heat.
“A common and amusing scene in late spring and summer is a mother skunk followed by a line of her kits. The kits are weaned after around two months.” The infants will usually stay with their mother for about a year, when they leave to mate on their own. Mother skunks are more than protective and atthe first sign of danger will usually spray.
Skunks spray using a feature called an anal scent gland, which isa defensive weapon. According to scientists, ” Skunks have two glands, one on either side of the anus, that produce a mixture of sulfur-containing chemicals (methyl and butyl thiols) that has a highly offensive smell that can be described as a combination of the odors of rotten eggs, garlic and burnt rubber. The odor of the fluid is strong enough to ward off bears and other potential attackers”
Muscles located next to the scent glands allow them to spray with high accuracy as far as 2 to 5 metres (7 to 15 ft). The smell aside, the spray can cause irritation and even temporary blindness.”
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