Friday, February 4, 2011

Ok, so let me get this one straight, Noah had two of these on his ark too:


North America's only marsupial (female has a pouch) mammal. The female carries and nurses her young in her marsupium until they are about 2 to 3 months old; then they are carried on her back another 1 to 2 months whenever they are away from the den.

Size of a cat; grey to black fur; black eyes; pink nose, feet and tail; black ears; and pointed nose.


Solitary and nocturnal: usually slow moving; when frightened and unable to flee may fall into an involuntary shock-like state, "playing 'possum".


Hiss or growl and show their 50 sharp teeth when frightened; but, in reality, they are gentle and placid— they prefer to avoid all confrontations and wish to be left alone.


Omnivorous: eats insects, snails, rodents, berries, over-ripe fruit, grasses, leaves, and carrion; occasionally will eat snakes, ground eggs, corn or other vegetables.


Adaptable; able to live wherever water, food, and shelter exist. At home in trees; uses its prehensile tail to help stabilize position when climbing— it does not, however, hang by its tail.


One of the shortest lived mammals for its size, typically 2 to 4 years. Killed by many predators: humans (and cars), dogs, cats, owls, and larger wildlife.

I remember the night when our son, then 6 years old, first came face to face with one of these ugly rat looking things – he was lying on the grass in our backyard, when a big, really big Opossum walked over and took a look at him – our son pissed his pants!







Comments (4)

Loading... Logging you in...
  • Logged in as
They're cute.!
1 reply · active 739 weeks ago
Yeah, kind of like saying that something is so ugly that it’s cute too?
My recent post US students falling short in science-
My little Wolf puppy KIRA has caught two of them now. She thinks they are Plush toys. Each time I call her in they just get up and scurry off. Funny thing though she's on a chain when outside,yet the possums are so dumb they still get caught ? Unlike the squirrels .
1 reply · active 739 weeks ago
That sounds real cool having a wolf puppy! She sounds kind of like our kid’s dog; he would make friends with almost anything that walked into his area, and even share his dog food and water with them. We had this old lady who lived a few lots down from us, who was always feeding the birds, raccoons, rabbits, possums, squirrels…, etc. which in turn made the wildlife a little too friendly, as far as I was concerned anyway.
My recent post Ok- so let me get this one straight- Noah had two of these on his ark too-

Post a new comment

Comments by