Wildlife Watching Wednesday: The Stinky Striped Skunk
By: Tom Berg
The skunk is certainly one of the most well-known mammals in the United States. Even people who are unfamiliar with wild animals can easily identify a skunk. The reason is simple: just about everyone has smelled the unpleasant and unmistakable odor of a skunk at some time in their life, and they have likely seen pictures of skunks in books or on TV. Skunks are pretty unforgettable.
If you can get past the smell, though, skunks are actually pretty interesting! Striped skunks have glossy black fur with either one or two stripes running down their backs to their bushy tail. They are usually about the size of a housecat. They will eat just about anything, including insects, worms, frogs, mice, bird eggs, fruit and grain. Skunks also eat wasps and bees. As a matter of fact, skunks are a major predator of honeybees. When they find a beehive, they break it open and eat the guard bees that come out to fight. Then they eat the honey!
Of course, the most memorable thing about skunks is their terrible smell. Skunks emit a potent oily spray from their anal glands that can overpower most other animals. The smell is extremely noxious and very long-lasting. Almost all adversaries who are sprayed (including humans) give up the fight immediately and flee.
One exception is the great horned owl. Skunks are mostly nocturnal, so they are active at night while owls are busy hunting. Great horned owls regularly attack and eat skunks because the owls have no sense of smell. So the odor does not bother them at all. The smell does bother people, though, so give the skunk a wide berth.
Surprisingly, the incredibly stinky liquid (skunk essence) that skunks spray is used in the high-end perfume industry! The strong smell of skunk essence (thiols) can last for days or weeks, and chemists have figured out how to strip away the bad smell and add the long-lasting thiols to good-smelling perfumes to make them last longer. It works amazingly well!
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