Richard Collins: Makes scents — weapons and warnings in nature

A skunk's spray is so strong that exposure to it can cause vomiting and temporary blindness

Skunks' stripes are a way of letting predators know they have 'weaponry'

The ‘foul mart’, or ‘polecat’, is native to Britain but it isn’t found in Ireland. ‘Mustela putoris’, its biological name, translates as ‘the foul-smelling musk bearer’. If startled, this relative of the stoat and the pine marten releases an obnoxious smelly substance. However, it’s in the half-penny place compared to the stink its distant relative, the skunk, produces. It squirts a revolting vaporous fluid, the animal equivalent of a policeman’s pepper-spray.

As Looney Tunes devotees know, Pepé le Pew, the skunk, is frustrated in his search for love because of the pong he gives off. Like polecats, skunks produce their repellent substance in anal glands. It will see off predators as big as bears.