Yucatan Spotted Skunk

The Yucatan spotted skunk, Spilogale yucatanensis, is a species of skunk in the family Mephitidae that is native only to the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. William Henry Burt described it in 1938 as a subspecies of the southern spotted skunk, from an adult female collected at Chichen Itza on 2 March 1936, and a 2021 taxonomic revision of the genus raised it to a full species. It differs from the southern spotted skunk in its smaller size and smaller, more closely spaced teeth, and from the pygmy spotted skunk in having black rather than white legs and a larger, triangular skull. Its habitat is deciduous and semi-deciduous tropical forest, and its closest relatives are the eastern and plains spotted skunks, from which it separated about 660,000 years ago.