Striped skunk
Mephitis mephitis
— Where the name comes from
Mephitis is the Latin word for the pestilential exhalation that rises from the ground, and at the same time the name of Mefitis, an Italic goddess of sulphurous waters worshipped in the Valle d’Ansanto, in Irpinia. The naturalist Schreber repeated it as genus and epithet, producing a tautonym that insists twice on the same idea. The Italian moffetta comes from there too: before it named the animal, it named the gaseous emissions of volcanic ground. Few species carry a name that is, entirely, a description of their smell.
— Facts
- Group
- Mammals · Mammalia
- Order
- Carnivores
- Habitat
- Grassland, open woodland, farmland and city outskirts
- Range
- North America, from southern Canada through the United States to northern Mexico
- Size
- 52–77 cm including tail, 1.2–6.3 kg
- Diet
- Omnivore — insects, grubs, small rodents, eggs, carrion and fruit
- Lifespan
- 2–3 years in the wild, up to 10 in captivity
— Characteristics
- 01
Two glands beside the anus hold about 15 ml of secretion, enough for five or six aimed jets up to six metres.
- 02
The active ingredient is a mixture of sulphurous thiols, detectable by the human nose at infinitesimal concentrations.
- 03
Before spraying it warns at length: it stamps its forefeet, raises its tail and feigns short charges.
- 04
The pattern of white stripes varies from animal to animal, like a fingerprint.
— What sets it apart
The skunk’s most persistent predator is the great horned owl, which drops in silence and has virtually no sense of smell. The chemical defence, formidable against coyotes, foxes, bobcats and dogs, has no effect at all on a hunter that cannot smell: skunk remains turn up regularly in owl nests, and the nests themselves keep the stench for weeks. Refilling the glands takes about ten days, during which the animal is nearly defenceless and knows it, spending a great deal of energy on warnings so as not to have to fire. The perfect weapon has one flaw: it assumes the enemy has a nose.
