What Do Skunks Eat? Striped Skunk Diet and Foraging

Insects are the main course

Although skunks belong to the order Carnivora, the striped skunk is above all an insect eater. In spring, summer and early autumn, insects and other invertebrates make up most of what it eats.

Favorite items include:

• Beetles and their larvae, including the white grubs of June beetles and other scarabs living under grass.
• Grasshoppers and crickets, caught in fields and meadows on warm nights.
• Caterpillars, moth pupae and other larvae.
• Bees and wasps, together with their larvae, dug from ground nests.
• Earthworms, spiders, centipedes and crayfish.

Because they eat so many insects, skunks are an important part of the food web on farms, in meadows and in suburbs. Many of the beetle larvae they dig up feed on grass roots and crops, so farmers and gardeners have long regarded skunks as helpful insect eaters, even if the small holes they leave in lawns are less welcome.

Small animals, eggs and carrion

Skunks are not built to chase fast prey, but they take small vertebrates whenever they can catch them. In winter and spring, when insects are scarce, they eat more white-footed mice, deer mice, voles and shrews. They dig young rabbits and mice out of nests, and they have been seen following cottontail rabbits into burrows.

The eggs and chicks of ground-nesting birds, such as ducks, quail and turkeys, are an important seasonal food in some areas. Skunks also eat frogs, toads, salamanders, small snakes and lizards, and occasionally fish. On the coast of California, striped skunks forage along beaches for crabs and dead fish.

Carrion is welcome too. Skunks scavenge dead animals, including roadkill, which unfortunately puts them at risk from traffic.

Fruit, seeds and other plants

In late summer and autumn, skunks eat a lot of fruit as it ripens. Recorded foods include apples, blueberries, black cherries, wild grapes and ground cherries, as well as corn, grains, seeds, nuts and some leaves and grasses. Fruit helps skunks put on fat before winter.

How the skunk diet changes through the year

In the northern parts of their range, striped skunks fatten up dramatically in autumn and then spend much of the winter asleep in dens. They can lose up to about half of their body weight before spring.

How skunks find and catch food

Skunks forage alone, usually at night. A foraging skunk walks slowly with its nose close to the ground, zigzagging across a lawn, field edge or forest floor and sniffing for insects in the soil. Its senses of smell and hearing are good, but its eyesight is poor.

When it detects a grub, a skunk digs quickly with its long front claws. This leaves small, neat, cone-shaped holes, often a few centimeters across, a typical sign that a skunk has been feeding. Skunks also tear apart rotting logs for beetle larvae and turn over stones and leaf litter.

To catch a mouse or grasshopper, a skunk pounces and pins the prey with its front feet.

Skunks in suburbs and towns

Striped skunks have adapted well to life near people. In suburbs they forage on lawns, in gardens, in compost heaps and around trash bins, and they sometimes eat food left outdoors. City skunks still eat many insects, but they take advantage of human food waste and fallen fruit.

Wild animals do best on their natural diet, so it is better not to feed skunks or other wildlife on purpose. Food left out can draw skunks close to houses and pets, and regular feeding can spread disease among animals that gather in one place.

How skunks compare with other small omnivores

Skunks share much of their menu with other North American omnivores. Raccoons, for example, eat more fruit, nuts and aquatic animals and are better climbers, as explained in What do raccoons eat? Virginia opossums are even more general scavengers, eating almost anything, as covered in What do opossums eat?

In Europe, where there are no skunks, the European badger fills a similar niche: a digging, mostly nocturnal omnivore that eats huge numbers of earthworms and insect larvae, described in What do badgers eat?

Because skunks forage slowly and in the open, they rely on their spray for safety while they eat. Only a few predators, above all the great horned owl, are willing to ignore that defense, as described in What eats skunks?