It’s bad enough that the Striped Skunk is born blind and never develops good vision. On top of visual impairment, it has to deal with being known for bad smells - even its scientific name “Mephitis mephitis” means “stinky stinky” in Latin.

Simply put, everyone knows that a threatened skunk sprays the most awful smelling sulphur-alcohol compound from anal glands under its tail. Everyone, that is, except dogs. Dogs get sprayed by skunks so often because, to a dog, a skunk lifting up its tail is an invite to come smell its butt. Of course, that’s literally the opposite of what the skunk is saying.

But there’s more to the skunk than being stinky: in fact, this species is immune to snake venom and regularly dines on the corpses of poisonous snakes.