Ready or not, here I come…!
I know what you’re thinking: What’s the point of playing Hide ‘n Seek when we leave such a lingering trail of delightful perfumery? Well luckily for me, Tulip up there is a little hard of smelling, so it will be a while before everyone is all “olly olly oxen free”, if you catch my drift.
Actually these are two of the four spotted skunks at the Bronx Zoo. Check out the video below, and thanks to sender-inner Luke G, and photographer Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.
How adorable! They look almost stoat-like with those big cheekbones.
I smell cuteness.
The second picture is all like “oh hello there, please do come but excuse the mess, we had to fire the cleaning lady”
skunkies!!! definitely worthy of cuteoverload-ness despite their stinky reputation. they are on my list of ‘pets i wanna have some day’.
LOVE the 2nd pic…@Trez…you forgot “would you like a spot of tea? No bother, I just put the kettle on.”
Why are spotted skunks so much cuter than regular (2-stripe) skunks? This one looks…. pert?
CUTE!! Just saw a nature show about these guys the other day!
Aquadriac – so did I, was it the one were the guy ran a skunk rescue? I was squeeing during many segments.
Once I cuddled a baby skunk.
Socutemakesyoujumblewordstogether and SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEl with delite.
Heeerre kitty, kitty, kitty
I will snorgle at my own risk!
Picture two looks like our friend, the Vote Vote Stoat, after an accident with some white paint.
aw, man, this post stinks.
I do hope that before supper Ms. Skunkersons here bows her head, folds her paws, closes her eyes, and says “let us spray…”
(*sngiggleerk*)
(That was the sound of a *snerk* and a giggle, combined).
(Thanyeverrmuch.)
Signed,
(?????) has left the Building.
“I smell like an old Heineken!” Oh lawdy! Cute little face.
The teeth on those little guys! I never thought of skunks as having such l’il pointy teeth.
Aw, love the second pic!
Skunks are SO CUTE!! We have ‘em running around here in the spring with their babies, little bumbling black and white balls of fluff … I’d love to have one as a pet. Or at least a friend.
I love skunks.. NOT the smell but they are excellent guests to your garden at least out here in California where the darlings eat tons of snails… YEp they are awesome… not to mention Cute!
The second pic is all like: “You wanna play? I play wiff you!”
My parents have neighbors that found 2 baby skunks next to their mother’s lifeless body in the road late one night. They took them home and attempted to feed them and mother them, but one died within a few days. The other was somewhat of a pet for a while, and one day he just bumbled off into the woods and never came back. I had the chance to hold him when he was just a little guy, and I was surprised at how little fragrance he had. He pooped on me though, so he wasn’t completely fragrance-free.
OH Pepe !!!!
Thems jist ornery old Pole Cats, wearing a fun fur coat from ‘Crazy Critters’ boutique.
squeeee! peeenk leeps and nosies!
In the immortal words of Teresa, “How stinkin’ cute!!!”
LITERALLY stinkin’ cute!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PS These are Bronx Zoo skunks, so they are my homies. Sort of.
WOW !!! I always wanted a skunk ! So adorable !
My mom and I just watched the PBS show on skunks LAST NIGHT! What’s funny about these dudes is that they do a handstand before they spray with their little back legs splayed out to the side and their tails straight up…it looks hilarious. They are multi-talented.
Moist nosicles!!!
I especially like the “licky licky tree twig” moment in the video. Wonder what that behavior is about?
Nice soundtrack of the outdoor @ nighttime, Bronx Zoo. Reminds me of the skunktastic nightly foraging one town discovered they had encouraged by setting out bowls of food for stray cats. Little did they know what would be strutting in to town!!
Kristy,
Wonder if that was the same PBS show I saw several months ago. Such an interesting eppy! (Nature, maybe?) I was glad to find out that skunks don’t always spray and that they are rather friendly creatures. They look so soft!
I spelled you wrong, Theresa. But you knew who I meant.
I TOTALLY want one of these as a pet! Sans scent glands, of course.
“Actually these are two of the four spotted skunks at the Bronx Zoo.” I read that as being two 4-spotted skunks and I couldn’t figure out why they were called that. Clearly, they have more than 4 spots each. I’m sure I was just stupified by the qte. Yeah, that’s it.
“Mommmmmm! Rusty keeps saying that my feet don’t stink!”
spunks = spotted skunks
heh
::documentary voice::
The spotted skunk is a timid creature… until angered. You wouldn’t want to see him angry!
::cue the INCREDIBLE HULK movie music::
HEY, YOU KIDS! GET OFF MY LAWN!
That second pic is giving the Momonga Squad a real run for the money in my book. And the rollover text made me snerk.
Imagine being the skunk wrangler at the local zoo. I wonder if that guy is like the most junior of zookeepers. Like you gotta put in your time and eventually hope that a spot becomes available in Possums or Frogs of the Boreal Forest.
Early one morning last fall, I went out on the front porch to get the newspaper;
there, about one yard away, were the cutest little skunkies busily digging through my neighbor’s garbage…..I froze and then slowly backed up into the doorway…. the liddol cuties didn’t much care: they were too busy chewing up some left-over corn on the cob and half-eaten chikken legs….. they had dessert, though…. they gnawed at a plastic bag until it broke open and gobbled up all the remaining cookies…….. nom, nom, nom
Sounds like they just threw a bunch of crickets in there for them to eat. Yummy!
At the risk of being scolded, I’ll tell. Years ago when Skippy was still free-range before he moved in with me, I used to leave a dish of food out by my back steps for him. Two baby skunks started showing up at night to eat the remnants. One night I went out and sat on the step and watched them from about a foot away. They seemed to be okay with that, and then I actually picked up the smaller one and cuddled him for a minute. He didn’t act as though he minded at all. He was very, very cute and didn’t smell.
(waits for scolding)
@Birdcage – Unless they have vultures. Even the guy on skunks is probably glad not to be the guy handling birds whose defensive reflex is to projectile vomit. Skunk’s harder to wash off, but the psychological effect of carrion bird urp to the face takes awhile to wear off.
B “stood under a low-built vulture’s nest once and looked up… bad idea #842″ Strange
Dontcha think it is a skosh ironic — what with all of the air sniffing in the video and all???
And I never realized how stoaty their leetle faces are!
The more you know! (head tilt)
Ah-dore-ah-buhls!
Ahh, the lovely sounds of nature!
All skunks are beautiful but the markings on these little ones are gorgeous!
This post smells funny…
Anybody else remember the cool skunk hat Frankie Avalon wore in “The Alamo?” This guy would make an elegant chapeau. (
NOTE: This is not to be construed as advocating the turning of small mammals into hats. I just think he’s a great fashion statement.)
I was thinking, if they didn’t spray they’d just be some fuzzy weasels. But add the stench and you have bad-ass skunks. Yeah.
VONZEP in the house!!!
Okay, is there anybody else here who actually likes the smell of skunk spray? I don’t mean when it’s right in your face, like when your dog got sprayed and you’re trying to get him clean. That’s horrible. But at a distance, lingering in the air, I actually, well, enjoy it. Or perhaps I should not have confessed this?
Yeah, Theresa, I’d been wondering where he was!
@NTMTOM, shades of poor accident-prone Penelope Pussycat, who was always getting hit on by Pepe LePew.
Oh, my heart just melted! We have a family of skunks that visit just after twilight, during skunk season of course. The matriarch and I wait on the porch with our whiskey sours and along will come Papa Skunk, nosing around for leftover sunflower seeds. Mama Skunk comes a little later in the evening. When the kids are older she’ll bring them too. Their treat of choice seems to be anything with cheez…Doritos, Nips, etc. Amazing how even the common country skunks have such a wide variation in markings. Nothing like these little darlin’s though!
Holy cow, I was just about to send these pics!! Somebody -bodies plural, I’m sure, beat me to the punch!
I never knew there were skunks with spots! How freakin’ adorable! I love the second pic espeche!! I’d like to skritch his little ears but then again, you’d risk a hosing, or at least a nasty bite. I hear they can be ferocious little biters.
Their tiny little yawns were adorable!
Theresa, Skippymom–I have been kept away from CO for a while by an evil brew of computer problems and. . . well. . . life.
(Dr. NIck Riviera voice) Hi, everybody!
We’re glad you’re back, VonZep. Hope things are better now.
The handstanding skunk!
Aims for the eyes?!! 
@Penny, “during skunk season of course. ”
When is that? Is that when the skunks are, um, ripe?
Maybe in between duck season and wabbit season?
I don’t recommend poking the skunks to test their ripeness.
Hey, I haven’t used
in awhile. Welcome back 
!
The second baroo picture made me squeee!!! <3
Hi Von Zep! LOL
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! Cute skunky little creeeturs! I want! My hubby said the only skunk I can have would be one that sprayed bacon scent…
Teeny Gozer, that video was amaaaazing!
Step 1: snorgle
Step 2: bathe in tomato juice for hours
Our skunky pals start their visits around mid-April, and disappear when the snow flies. We always had the idea that they hibernated, but that may not be the case. I started seeing flat skunks on the road recently, and a couple weeks ago there was a faint odor of skunk in the air…while we were still under several feet of snow! So they’re definitely up and around in south-central NY/NEPA.
Dangit, you made me yawn!
HOORAY! I work at the Bronx Zoo and have the best job ever. I don’t work in any of the animal departments but at least I get to wander around and enjoy the amazing animals when I have a free few minutes out of my office. Everyone needs to come visit our cutie-pie skunks! And wait ’til you hear about some of the zoo babies that will debut this spring. Can’t give any details yet but you will all LOVE it! Support the Bronx Zoo and its parent organization, the Wildlife Conservation Society. http://www.bronxzoo.org
I’m still laughing about the Heineken hovertext. Well played!
My dad had pet skunks when he was a kid. Many years later, I had the pleasure of seeing my dad very nearly go “Squee!” over my ferrets, because they reminded him so much of his pet skunks.
Dahhlink! you look FABULOUS!
resemblance to voting stoat (and ferrets) is not a coincidence, all three are varieties of mustelids.
@skippymom (no scolding here)
AWW 
Those little skunks probably did not mind letting you pick them up since you left them food 
Skunks do NOT stink unless they RELEASE their stinkyness 
Von Zep – Good to see you back.
skippymom – I kinda like the smell of skunk – light and in the distance – too! I associate it with being out in the country. The scent reminds me of sesame seed oil.
I used to live where skunks were thick on the ground, and I can tell you that in mating season, male skunks tended to stink to high heaven 24/7; we could smell one coming for a mile. I’m not sure whether this was from getting a little too feisty in their competitions with other male skunks, or getting approached by predators or curious dogs while distracted… or maybe they got fresh with a female skunk who didn’t like the look of ‘em, I dunno.
The rest of the time, unless they’d recently fired a shot, they were as unsmelly as anything else if they were healthy. (If it’s not mating season and a skunk is walking around stinking to the sky, it’s best to keep your distance. Even if it’s just feeling grumpy.)
Old Heineken. LOL…they do get mighty “skunky”. Oh man, that was great.
I’ve never smelt skunk. I feel deprived now
My mother had a pet skunk growing up (along with cats). It was “descented”. Her name was Rosebud. She said it was a great pet!
fat weasels in formal!
Yes, the smell of skunk lightly dusting the air is a perfume, and to me it smells like hippy smoke! What you get when they spray is something completely else though. Whew!
Nobody is going to scold over petting baby skunks, if you’d done wrong you’d know, and you’d never have forgotten. clearly the affection was permissible! I wouldn’t mind skunks in my yard but I built a fence to keep my rabbits in and it keeps other critters out too.
they are so cute!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
a close up of the second photo’s cute snozzleness is definitely in order!
Only thing cuter is an otter.
I was afraid that my story about handling the baby skunk would cause a chorus of “oh no you shouldn’t handle baby wild animals it will make their mother reject them!!!” which from what I read is probably a myth. So anyway I guess I got away with it. Cool.
This post is NOT helping my husband’s case that I am not allowed to have a skunk as a pet. One of my former managers had a descented one (she may still, but it’s been quite awhile), and she was almost like a cat in her behavior.
Have to agree with Heather about the otter. If I find the pics I took the last time I went to the zoo, I shall have to submit them.
…now that storytime is over… *dies from qte*
Check out the paws at 1:04
Skunks used to be grouped in a sub family of mustelids : ferrets, otters , badgers, weasels, wolverines, vote stoats. But now they have their own group
I’ve worked with 2 different pet skunks at the vet I work for and they are very attached to their owners.
Skippysmom, there’s something wrong with you.
I used to have a dog (Rest In Peace, Toby!!) that got sprayed regularly. (Regularly = once a week!!!) I always bathed him, got him nice and clean. One night, I heard some racket in the backyard after letting him out. I opened the back door and called him. Nothing. I figured he want on a romp and he’d be back. I was still nervous, but I knew he was close, he just jumped the fence to chase/maul the skunk that sprayed him.
Since I had opened the door and he was not there, I decided to sit out on the front porch and wait for him to come back. I did and he was taking a long time so I went back into the house to make some tea. I decided to check on him again, to see if he had returned form his skunk adventure. Now mind you I KNEW he had be sprayed so I was prepared to bathe him, etc.
What I was absolutely not prepared for was to open my front door and have him standing there after being sprayed directly in the face! The smell was so horrible and strong I shut the door in Toby’s face and proceeded to barf. I was completely overcome by the smell. I couldn’t let him in the house to bathe him or my whole house would smell. I had to bathe him at 11PM at night in my driveway with a hose! (and all the other stuff that gets our skunk spray) It was absolutely horrible. Even a milder version of that would have anyone puking rainbows.
I never panicked when bathing him or smelling the foul odor, although I have always thought it was horrendous and cannot see how anyone could even think it mildly OK.
Then again, perhaps it is me that needs therapy for scent aversion. I will NEVER forget it. EVER.
Nor will I ever forget Toby, hell be gone a year at the end of this month. I miss him like it was yesterday. Best rescue. Best Lab/Dalmatian. He took a piece of me with him. But, I still don’t miss the skunk adventures or the middle-of-the-night bathing sessions.
Oh my freakin’ god, it makes me want to go out and buy a ferret!
…”olly olly oxen free”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olly_olly_oxen_free
Though in the case of these two, “olly olly odor free” seems fitting.
Yes, the PBS program on skunks was aired on their Nature series (“Is That Skunk?”). You can watch the whole episode online – without commercials of course:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/is-that-skunk/video-full-episode/4581/
Really worth seeing. And apparently this is the first documentary ever that is entirely devoted to skunks!
These skunks are adorable and man, do they ever have a great defense mechanism. My sister and I were camping once and our dog burst into the tent after just having been skunked. I tell you, that smell will wake you from a coma. It actually burns the eyes. And it was really, really hard to get the smell out of our clothes and the dog. But they are really pretty.
What cute little stinkers
Precious!
When they sorta slink forward, then back up they show their familial resemblance to ferrets – my little Marco had the same moves
OMG!!!! That is the cutest thing I have seen!!!!! WOW Those ears are so small and the face is so angelic!!! OH I just want to squeeze him… but I won’t hurt him, that would ruin it
!!:)CUTE:)!!
Striped skunks can make good pets, but they do require, more work, and are not just like cats and dogs. I’ve had mine almost 4 yrs now. They are only legal to have in about 17 states though. Spotted ones, although some think cuter, do not make good pets, as the do not have a good temperment, and will probably never become real friendly. To be legal in any state, they must come from a licensed breeder, all whom descent them. Lots of good info can be found at http://www.skunkhaven.net including what states they are legal in. Mine is clean, friendly, and litterbox trained. If you plan to get one, you should research them first, and you must find a Vet. who will treat them, and has treated many before. They’re a little more work, but well worth it.