Click to Enlarge     Missouri's Opossum by Erin Shank, photos by Jim Rathert These nighttime scavengers faint at the fi rst sign of trouble. Opossums, which most people call possums, are related to kangaroos and koalas and are North America’s only marsupial, or pouched mammal. Although possums prefer wooded areas near streams, they are well-adapted to living in cities and on farms. They can make a home almost anywhere that is dry and protected. You might find them living in hollow logs, brush piles and even garages and tool sheds. Possums eat almost anything. They seem to love rotten fruit, stink bugs, grasshoppers, cockroaches, slugs and dead animals. By cleaning up unwanted insects and trash, they’ve earned the name “Nature’s Sanitation Engineers.” They also like cat food and dog food. Leaving a bowl of your pet’s food outside might attract possums. You’ve probably heard of “playing possum.” It means pretending to be dead, asleep, ill or unaware. When a possum is cornered or scared, it’ll sometimes fall over and its tongue will hang out of its mouth so that it appears to be dead. Possums aren’t actually playing at all. When faced with a threat, they go into a brief nervous shock, or faint. This response apparently works for possums. It makes predators that like to kill their food leave them alone. The possum usually wakes up in a minute or so and heads for cover. That pink, hairless tail on the possum is called “prehensile” because it is used for grasping. The tail is not strong enough to hold an adult possum, so possums do not hang from their tails as many people believe. Possums are good climbers, though, and will use their tails for balancing. Fun Possum Facts A female possum usually has two litters per year, with an average litter size of eight to nine babies. Adult possums have 50 teeth. That’s more than any other North American mammal. Most possums only live one to two years. Adult possums are solitary and nocturnal, meaning they live alone and are most active at night. Possums are nomadic and often use many den sites throughout the year. Possums are good swimmers and will swim across streams when scavenging for food or traveling to den sites. Possums can carry eight times as much nesting material (mostly leaves and twigs) with their tails as they can in their mouths. The average price of a possum pelt peaked in 1979, at $3.70. In January of 2004, the average price at Missouri fur auctions was about $2.25.   A possum’s unusual feet also help it climb. Can you imagine your big toes working like thumbs? The hind feet of possums have opposable toes that they use to hold onto branches. Possums are not good diggers. Their claws are soft and tear easily, so they often use old den sites of other animals, especially woodchucks. Baby possums are born after a gestation time of only 13 days, when they are about the size of a bee. Around the end of February, and again at the end of May, newborn possums crawl across the mother possum’s belly and into her pouch, where they remain for up to 100 days. The mother possum sometimes carries her young on her back as she searches for food. Words Worth Knowing Marsupials have a pouch in their bodies in which their babies grow and sometimes hide. Opposable toes work opposite of the other toes, allowing the foot to grasp objects. It’s like having a thumb on your foot. Animals that are nomadic do not have regular homes. They travel in search of food and sleep in a variety of places. Gestation time is how long a pregnancy lasts. Compare nine months for humans to the 13 days for possums!