This is for my readers in West Virginia only (if I have any).
Have you ever seen a spotted skunk in West Virginia?
Eastern spotted skunks. Supposedly native to West Virginia.
I’ve lived in the northern and central parts of the state, and I’ve never seen one.
Supposedly, West Virginia is within their native range.
But according to our state DNR mammal checklist, the Eastern spotted skunk is “uncommon.”
Understatement of the week.
I’ve never seen one here. In fact, I’ve never seen one period, so if I’m posting photos of the wrong species of spotted skunk on this blog, my apologies!
I’ve never heard anyone ever talk about them.
Except that I vaguely remember my grandmother talking about a dog killing a “civet cat,” which is a vernacular term for a spotted skunk.
But that was a story I remember from my childhood, and it may have been related to me seeing an African civet of some sort on television.
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Eastern spotted skunks have the best scientific name ever:
Spilogale putorius
“Stinking spotted weasel.”
Ah, but they aren’t weasels.
They are supposedly here in N. C. too, but I have never seen one alive(despite lots of cage trapping over many years, and being out in the woods a lot), nor a dead one on the road(and I’m one of those weirdos that actually pays close attention to road kills, and even stops and examines certain specimens!)–the only one I know of in the East was one a cousin of mine caught in a gin trap in North Georgia many years ago–definetely a Spotted, not a Striped skunk. Seems like if many were around, you’d see them as road kill now and then. You are not mistaken about them colloquially being called “civet cats”; I have heard that term, and “polecat” applied to skunks of all kinds in North America.