This one surprised me. I thought spotted skunks lived much farther south and that all we had in our region were striped skunks, Mephitis mephitis, which translates to foul-smelling, foul-smelling, so I guess they must smell bad. Call it a hunch.
But a check with Pam Petko-Seus, the wildlife biologist at Ijams, proved I was wrong. As if to underscore my mistake, Ijams member Sharon Burnett sent me a photo she took last December. Voila: no stripes but indeed, spots.
Sharon wrote, "Here is the picture of the spotted skunk we saw on the North Carolina border in the Nantahala." Minus the snowball that conceals the aromatic-mammal's front half, it's still an definative photograph of an animal I didn't even know lived here.
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