The American hog-nosed skunk is one of Colorado’s least-recorded mammals. Open occurrence databases hold just 15 records for it here, nearly all from the arid southeastern corner, where the animal reaches the far northern edge of a mostly Mexican and southwestern range.
A digger of the southeastern grasslands
Larger than the familiar striped skunk, this animal wears a single broad band of white running the length of its otherwise black back and carries a long, hairless, pig-like snout that it uses to root and plow through soil for grubs and insects. It favors rocky canyon country and shrubby grassland, and in Colorado the scattering of records centers on Baca County and the Comanche National Grassland, with a few outliers along the southern foothills.
At the edge of its range
The few reports are spread thinly across the year with no clear seasonal shape, which is what a tiny sample of a nocturnal, burrowing animal tends to look like. Hog-nosed skunks forage after dark and shelter by day, so they are rarely seen even where they occur, and Colorado sits at the very limit of where they can persist. NatureServe ranks the species S1, critically imperiled, in the state, a mark of just how few confirmed animals there are.
Common questions
How is it told from a striped skunk? By the single wide white back and the long bare snout; it also lacks the white forehead spot that other skunks show.
Where does it occur in Colorado? Mainly the arid southeastern plains and canyon country near the New Mexico and Oklahoma lines.
Full species profile
