I'm going to be playing possum!!!

[MizM]

I'm so excited. My friend is a licensed possum rehabilitator, and she's got two that can't be re-released into the wild. She uses them for her educational presentations. She's going on a cruise in February, and has asked me to possum-sit for 10 days!! SXhe tells me it's going to be a lot of work as "Sweet-pea" needs to have lots of affections every night! What a hardship THAT'S going to be!! I will take plenty of pics of the girls and post them after the vacation!!!!!

 

[Brian S]

Are they possums like we have around here or the Aussie possums?

 

[MizM]

This Kind: :d

 

[Malkavian]

The idea of being affectionate towards one of those things boggles the mind.

Not that I don't like possums, I think they're neat. The concept of them being cuddly is just utterly foreign after going through a handful of thread displays that would make an OBT proud

 

[MizM]

Ahhh, but that's the whole thing!! They are nothing BUT threat!! The first defense is to drool, bare all 50 of their teeth and growl. (They have more teeth than any other mammal!) If ya don't back off, they will either turn tail and run, or play dead for up to 4 hours!! They rarely attack and are extremely rabies resistant.

I too, thought they were good for nothing but aiming your car at, but since I've found out I was babysitting, I've learned a WHOLE lot I didn't know. Just like tarantulas, they are VASTLY misunderstood!!

 

[JonDaAzn]

we used to have lots of possums over here, but then the coyotes started coming into the community from a nature preserve type place in the middle of the city, the possum population dropped real quick after that happened...

also, i heard that while the possum can't get rabies, its mouth still contains quite a few nasty bugs, is this true?

 

[MizM]

...also, i heard that while the possum can't get rabies, its mouth still contains quite a few nasty bugs, is this true?

They CAN get rabies, it's just very rare. They seem to be naturally resistant to the disease. As far as "bugs" got, they don't carry any more in their saliva than any other critter that feeds off of garbage.

 

[Tim Benzedrine]

Ya know, I have NEVER been able to get one of those things to exhibit the "playing dead" behaviour. And I've tried several times when I've encountered them. I've caught them and actually picked them up and while they hiss, snarl and show a mouthful of teeth that would make the thing in the "Alien" movies bow down in worship, they never even acted like they had a case of the vapours, let alone acting like they were gonna faint.

However, when I was very young, 6 years old or so, I drug a dead one home, convinced that I had found one that was "playing possum". It never did rise from the dead, much to my young disappointment.
I was a very much a "hands on" young naturalist" in those days. I am amazed that I didn't end up with rabies or some other horrible zoonotic affliction!

 

[MizM]

Awwwww, SAD!! I can just envision a 6 year old kid kneeling over a dead possum, waiting for it to "wake up"! It's sad, but funny!!!

 

[WhyTeDraGon]

I think they are cute, being a marsupial lover myself. We have a family of opposums that I see during Spring every year in the tree next to my house moving from house to house. While im sure they dont live in the tree, they seem to like it. I hope to see them this year, ill take more pictures. I had some cool ones last year, but I deleted them.
Congrats on the babysitting job, sounds like fun

 

[Tim Benzedrine]

Awwwww, SAD!! I can just envision a 6 year old kid kneeling over a dead possum, waiting for it to "wake up"! It's sad, but funny!!!

Heh. Well, I guess that was ONE way of learning of the harsh realities of life. And death, as the case may be!

In another close encounter of the possum kind, when I was a bit older I was climbing along the trunk of a huge oak tree that had fallen over in the nearby woods. Well, I climbed out on a large broken off branch and noticed that it seemed to be hollow. I shimmied out to the end, laid on my stomach and hung my head down for a look inside. And found my self nearly playing toungue hockey with a hissing annoyed possum that I had really not expected to see. I mean we were RIGHT in each others face! Not for long, needless to say. I am sorta ashamed to say that the possum must have found my face more traumatizing than I did his, because I returned for several days to see if it was still there and it seemed to have permanently vacated the premises.
*SIGH* Oh, the pain of having a face that can scare off a possum! Which explains why nobody will ever see me in the "Who's behind the computer" thread.