Greetings, readers. Today, we continue our series, Caring for Mother Nature, by my friend, the author and naturalist, Peggy Sias Lantz. This year, let’s learn more about the critters we share the planet with, like this odd little mammal—the opossum—a pointy-face creature you may have seen hanging around in trees.
Mother Earth’s Creatures: The Opossum
by Peggy Sias Lantz
I think they’re ugly and stupid. Jennifer Hunt, my friend and director of the Oakland Nature Preserve, thinks they’re adorable. Well, they’re different. Opossums are different in several ways from any other North American mammal. The opossum has more teeth, it is the only marsupial in North America north of Mexico, it has a prehensile tail (Am I losing you? Hang on, I’ll explain.), they’re virtually immune to rabies and snake-bite venom, rarely carry disease, and eat most anything including insects, slugs in your garden, ticks, rodents, dead animals (and, unfortunately, chickens, including mine on occasion). They even have a grasping “thumb” on their hind feet.
The scoop on opossums
Okay, now for the details. A marsupial is an animal that has a pouch to carry its babies, like kangaroos and koalas. Dad and mom are called jack and jill. Possum babies, called joeys, when born are about the size of a bumblebee. They have to find their way from the birth canal to the pouch all by themselves, where they latch onto a nipple and stay there for two to three months before they take a look at what’s outside. They hang around with mommy for a while, sometimes riding on her back, before going off on their own.
A prehensile tail is a tail that can be used for grasping. A possum can hang by its tail for a short while or curl it around a stem for balance, though it’s not strong enough to swing from tree to tree or anything like that.
Possums are nocturnal, which means they’re active at night. I think one is hiding under my chicken barn now, but my chickens sleep in a nice snug coop that my son-in-law made for me, and the possums can’t get in.
They can climb trees, often sleeping in the branches or in a hidey-hole. They swim well, too, and can develop cataracts and arthritis.
Okay, and they “play possum,” looking like they’re dead while they exude a foul odor, bare their teeth, and do other nasty predator-deterring things, which I won’t go into detail about. But they’re not playing. It’s not a conscious act. They’re actually in a catatonic state from which they recover after the dangerous predator has gone away in disgust, sometimes hours after.
A possum story
Do you remember the Uncle Remus story about why the possum has no hair on its tail? Br’er Possum was in a ‘simmon tree eating delicious ripe persimmons, when Br’er B’ar spotted him and made a beeline for that tree. Br’er Possum saw the bear, but had to have “jus’ one mo’ ‘simmon, jus’ one mo’.” He finally jumped out of the tree and ran for the fence with Br’er B’ar hot after him. He almost made it, but Br’er B’ar caught his tail and stripped all the fur of’n it. And that’s why, to this day, Br’er Possum has no hair on his tail.
Possums are docile and pretty harmless, and fun to watch (for me, any wild animal is fun to watch), though I still think they’re not very attractive.
—END—
So, how do we care for opossums? I say just stay out of their way. Live and let live.
I wish you all a happy new year.
Thanks for reading!
Your writer on the wing,
Charlene
