The striped skunk is one of Arkansas’s most-recorded mammals, 1133 records, well over half of them from Sebastian County, with the rest reaching from Pike and Hempstead counties in the southwest to Craighead County in the northeast. Few mammals are so widespread and so confidently identified; nothing else in the state carries that white stripe and that reputation.
A grub hunter that works by night
Behind the famous defense sits a quiet insectivore. Skunks dig small, neat conical holes in turf and leaf litter for beetle grubs, and take mice, eggs, fallen fruit, and carrion as they find them. Records at Buffalo National River, Ouachita National Forest, and Ozark National Forest sit alongside many from farmland and suburb, since a skunk needs little more than denning cover, a brush pile, a culvert, a space under a porch, and open ground to forage.
The March surge
Skunks do not hibernate, though several may den together through the coldest weeks. Late winter brings the breeding season, when males wander widely by night, and Arkansas’s record jumps accordingly: March alone accounts for roughly a third of all reports.
Status in Arkansas
NatureServe ranks the striped skunk S5, Secure, and the species is native to Arkansas. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous in the state.
Full species profile
