Habitat:
Description:
Physical Adaptations:
Behavioral Adaptations:
Learned Behaviors:
Instincts:
- Skunks live in forests and woodlands.
Description:
- Skunks are mammals that can be easily recognized by their black and white colored fur.
- Skunks are small animals. They reach 8-19 inches in size and weigh up to 14 pounds.
- Skunks are black with two white stripes down their backs.
- Skunks have short legs.
Physical Adaptations:
- Although skunks have excellent smell and hearing, their vision is very poor and they can only see objects that are right in front of them.
- A skunk's spray is an oily liquid produced by glands under its large tail.
- The black-and-white coloring is a warning sign to anyone who may harm this small creature. The skunks dramatic coloring makes it easy for their victims to remember them and avoid them in the future.
- Its strong shoulders, back, forelimbs, and sharp claws are specially designed for digging.
- Skunks are immune to rattlesnake venom, bee stings and scorpions, and will eat all of them.
- Skunks have long claws.. In the wild, these long nails help them dig up insects to eat.
Behavioral Adaptations:
- The female gives birth to 2-10 babies.
- The mother skunk takes care of her babies.
- Before it sprays the victim, skunk will turn its back, lift its tail, start hissing and stumping with its feet. Those are the warning signs that precede spraying.
- Skunk can spray its oily and smelly substance up to 10 feet distance.
- Skunks usually nest in burrows constructed by other animals, but they also live in hollow logs.
- Skunks are nocturnal and forage for food while most animals and humans sleep.
- They don't actually hibernate, but in locations where winter temperatures fall below freezing, they will go into something called a torpor, which is a sleep period of reduced metabolism. Unlike hibernation, which is a long term state of very low body temperature and metabolism, torpor is a lighter sleep, with only a slightly lowered body temperature, and the animal will wake up occasionally, especially if there is a warm day or two.
- Skunks are solitary animals. They live alone.
- Skunks are omnivores, which mean that they eat both plants and animals. They like to eat fruits, insects, worms, reptiles and rodents. Skunks often attack beehive because they eat honeybees.
Learned Behaviors:
- They’re very smart. A skunk will roll a furry caterpillar in the dirt to get rid of its irritating hairs before eating it.
- Skunks commonly take up residence in abandoned burrows made by other animals like foxes, especially in the wintertime when they are caring for their offspring, or kits. To keep warm, they stuff the tunnels and nesting areas with dried leaves, which provide the mammals with insulation.
- A skunk raises its tail and stomps its feet as a warning for the predator to back off.
- A baby skunk must learn to hunt and look for food.
Instincts:
- Baby skunks will begin to raise their tails when frightened in a matter of days, and can spray at about 3 or 4 weeks old.
- Baby skunks have the ability to drink their mother's milk when they are born.
- Mother skunks instinctively take care of their young.