Before resorting to his famous chemical defence, he warns with a very recognizable sequence of behaviors: he trips with his front legs, arches his tail and sometimes makes the pine relying on his front legs, thus giving the potential attacker several opportunities to withdraw before receiving a discharge from his anal glands. This oily liquid, expelled with precision up to several meters, contains sulfur compounds so persistent that they can be detected more than a kilometre away and are almost impossible to completely remove the skin or fur without a specific treatment. His striking black fur with white stripes works as a distance warning for any predator who has already learned, usually by experience, to associate that pattern with an unpleasant response. He lives in a huge variety of North American habitats, from forest to
A medium-sized mustel, black coat with two white strips that are born on the neck and travel through the back to the tail, very thick and glamorous.It differs from other species of mofeta of its same area by the concrete pattern of the dorsal strips, and from any other mammal of its range by that combination of white and black so recognizable even at night.
Fingerprint with 5 fingers on each foot and long nail marks well visible, 3-4 cm in the front, with a drawn and poorly defined floor compared to the agile trout of a slimmer mustélide. Cylindrical excretions, 5-7 cm, with remains of insect and visible seed, deposited without fixed pattern through its field territory. The most characteristic sign, more than the footprint, is the smell: small conical slices on the lawn or the ground where it has scratched looking for insect larva, and in case of recent alarm a strong persistent sulfur smell in the environment, sometimes with yellow spots of oily liquid over near vegetation.
Very varied, from open forest and prairie to sewage and urban and periurban areas, from low lands to middle mountain quarters. Distributed by much of North America, from southern Canada to northern Mexico.
Omnivorous, it feeds on insects, larvae, small vertebrates, eggs, fruit and carrot, scratching on the ground with the long nails in front.
Solitary outside the breeding season, of nighttime activity, remains inactive in periods of intense cold in underground shelters without really hibernating.
Its populations are considered stable in practically all of its wide distribution area, favored by its great ability to adapt to habitats altered by humans.
It does not face significant threats at species level; locally suffers road crashes and is a frequent carrier of rabies, which motivates its control in some areas.
See all species accounts for carnivores · Full species index
Mammaling is a free app for logging the mammals you find. You record a sighting in a moment — even if it's just a track — your life list grows, and the record becomes available to scientific and conservation projects.
It runs on your phone with nothing to install. If you like, it adds to your home screen like any other app.
Open Mammaling