The odor of skunk oil is disliked by skunks.
Nothing else makes the skunk famous except its stinky smell. Have you learned these fascinating facts about the skunk?
Skunks don’t usually suffer from bee stings. They squash the bees between their two front paws to eliminate them.
Other types of food are eaten by skunks, especially spotted skunks. They enjoy eggs from birds, worms, snails, clams, frogs, mice, lizards, and baby rabbits.
Skunks have a varied diet consisting of fresh grass, leaves, fruits, and nuts, which they prefer when they are in season. Their sense of hearing is not as strong as their sense of smell, which is the most powerful of all their senses. In fact, skunks can detect insects that are underground with their remarkable sense of smell.
To help them smell better and easier, skunks often sneeze to clear their noses. They make different sounds depending on their mood: they hiss when angry, squeal when hurt, and sometimes grunt, growl or snarl, especially when they are young. Skunks face their enemy and try to appear bigger and scarier by raising their tail and arching their backs. Some skunks, such as the spotted ones, can also do a “handstand” and walk on their front feet with their tails up in the air for a long distance.
The stinky white or yellowish oil that comes from small glands is hated by skunks. The spray of skunks contains less than half a teaspoon of oil. A skunk needs a few days to refill its glands after firing up to eight times.
The oil of skunks has a smell that can make humans or other animals sick. Mines use chemicals and the oil to alert workers of danger when they cannot hear because of loud machinery. They have to stop what they are doing and run to safety if they smell it. Kits need their mother to survive, but they never see their father. Skunk babies are born in different sizes and usually in May. While skunks have five to seven kits at a time, hog-nosed skunks have one to four.
While striped and spotted skunks may have two litters a year, some skunks have only one. Mother skunks nurse their babies with milk to make them grow big and strong. Kits can see and have furry coats by four weeks. By six weeks, they’re playing and running around. Baby skunks eat any food that is offered to them. Kits gradually learn to find their own food, munching on grass and berries, digging up worms and pouncing on insects and mice. They also follow Mama Skunk as she grabs small fish with her paws from the moving water. Kits are usually as big as their mother by the end of summer. They leave to live by themselves in the Fall, usually for up to ten years.
Weird things skunks do:
-before eating a fuzzy caterpillar, a skunk might roll it around on the ground to get rid of the hair.
-roll up sections of the lawn to dig for insects in the soil under the grass.
-treat a car as their enemy, and spray it.
-when they-re striped, is swim for up to seven hours at a time.
How fun are these skunk fun facts? Do you want to see more animal fun facts like this?