Striped skunk

In brief

Mephitis mephitis, Mephitidae, order Carnivora.

- Resident, nocturnal
- Native across most of North America
- Omnivore, and mostly an insect eater

Where it lives

Almost all of North America, in woodland edge, grassland and farmland, and comfortable around people. It dens under things: woodpiles, outbuildings, decks and burrows something else dug.

When you see it

Recorded on a trail camera after dark on September 4, 2026.

What it eats

Mostly insects. Beetles, grubs, crickets, and yellowjacket nests dug out of the ground, then mice, eggs and fruit. It is a carnivore that spends most of the night eating bugs.

Here

We call him Pepe le Pew.

The tail is up in this frame and the animal is walking rather than turning, which is the ordinary way to meet one. The spray is the end of a sequence and not the start: stamping the front feet, hissing, then the tail. All of it is an attempt to avoid spending what it has.

It carries enough for five or six shots and needs more than a week to make more, so it spends none of it on something that is leaving. The animals that get sprayed here are dogs, because a dog closes the distance the warning is asking it not to close.

Skunks are not weasels. The DNA moved them out of that family into one of their own, and the glands are what the family is named for.