The National Park Service shared amusing trail camera footage of a western spotted skunk at Saguaro National Park in Tuscon, Arizona, doing a defensive handstand dance, though at first glance it’s hard to tell what’s going on.
Too much passion. Pull back. Pull back. Nice footwork. Paw work? You might be asking yourself, “What am I looking at?” That’s fair. It’s obviously a skunk doing a moving handstand. You were thinking it was some sort of mask with feathers?
This particular dance is done to warn predators to not come any closer, for if they do, they will be sprayed with the skunk’s incredibly odiferous atomized stink.
If the dancing handstand fails to intimidate…, they will resort to the real room clearers: a pair of scent glands out back that spray a foul-smelling musk.
via My Modern Met
