Meet the Spotted Skunks. They’ve Been Keeping a Secret From Us.

New research using hundreds of DNA samples showed that there are seven species of these hand-standing, stink-spraying mammals.

Black fur, white stripes, fanny full of foul-smelling liquid — everybody can identify the striped skunk. But did you know these malodorous mammals have a number of smaller cousins marked by a pattern of black-and-white Rorschach blots? They’re known as the spotted skunks, and they do something the stripeys can’t. Spotted skunks perform a spread-eagled handstand before they spray you. “I jokingly call them the acrobats of the skunk world,” said Adam Ferguson, a small carnivore biologist at the Field Museum in Chicago.