“Haters gonna hate…”
Buster Keaton sums up our stereotype of this black-and-white little carnivore here:
Hollywood handled its animal actors more roughly back then. Buster has the skunk by its tail because conventional wisdom, though mistaken, was (and is) to not let a skunk get its hind feet on something solid so it can spray. The cat and Luke the Dog seem to come through their encounter all right. Luke is a nepo baby and earning $150 (1920s money) — more than what many human actors were paid at the time.
And then there’s sexual predator Pepé Le Pew — all in all, Mephitis mephitis isn’t exactly a Hollywood glamour figure.
But our hearts went out to the badly injured baby skunk in last week’s animal rescue video.
Let’s build on that positive feeling and check out some lesser known, interesting facts about this occasionally odiferous caniform family.
For instance, here’s a video that explains both the handstand and the famous black and white fur:
More information:
- Dr. Wikipedia on spotted skunks
- The National Zoo’s striped skunk page
- Humane suggestions on dealing with skunks and deskunking dogs
- Are polecats skunks? Technically, no, although some skunks are called polecats in various parts of the US.
Skunks do have some family members in the Old World — stink badgers.
It’s one of those misnomers — true badgers are in another caniform family.
Only one of the two known stink badger species flies the Mephitidae family colors of black and white:
This is a Sunda stink badger nonchalantly doing its thing, under the lights and cameras of tourists, in the Borneo rainforest.
In the Philippines, the Palawan stink badger has much more subdued coloring, and judging by YouTube videos, keeps a lower profile —
I hope the English captions embed, too — there just aren’t many videos of Palawan stink badgers.
— although it, too, can be nonchalant when curious humans are around:
🐾🐾🐾
Genetic testing suggests that Mephitidae are closest to two other groups in Caniformia: Raccoons (Procyonidae) and a little red cutie that we’ll meet next time.
There’s so much more to skunks than the stereotype — probably more than we’ll ever know.
Featured image: Image by Silvia from Pixabay
Flight To Wonder 