A short clip of Sunday's possum, the last dig of the day. This one was tailed out, and I put her up a thin bush while I sorted the dogs out, and tried to figure out how to work the video mode on the point-and-shoot camera.
I put up this little video clip for the folks in Europe who do not have possums. Possums are pretty slow-witted, and not too formidable. Their real claim to fame is their fecundity; they can easily have 20 or more young a year, and they will eat just about anything. They, in turn, serve as a sort of walking-buffet lunch for fox, coyote, bobcat, owls, hawks, eagles and alligators.
Our only marsupial, possums have more teeth than any other mammal in this hemisphere, but their teeth are not as big as a fox, or a powerful as a raccoon. The average possum only weighs 9-10 pounds, but some will get quite a bit bigger than that, and I have a skull of one that must have tipped 25 pounds when it was alive.
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3 comments:
The possums that live in town are a whole lot bigger than 10 pounds. Pepper found one on our porch that was at least 18 pounds -- rather than "play possum" it starting hissing at her so that we could see all its teeth (and yes, they do have lots of teeth).
Since possums aren't that big a deal, we just brought Pepper inside and rearranged the porch furniture so that it would move on.
They do seem to freak out who haven't seem them before -- we had to calm down our Cuban neighbor who found a baby possum in her back yard and was convinced it was some type of devil spawn! (Hey, the Jersey Devil is only 120 miles away! ;-))
Dorene
I had a "skunk dog" or more appropriately a "golden boxer" (golden retriever/boxer cross) that would often catch things. She was a big, galumphing dog that looked like a cross between a Labrador and a hyena.
One day, in early March, I took her for a walk. And she ran off out of sight. A few minutes later she started barking, and she had this loud, rapid machine gun bark. After about five minutes, she stopped barking.
Two minutes later, she ran back to me carrying a huge, almost entirely white opossum. I thought it was dead. But I was somewhat proud of her catch, so I let her carry it home.
As she trotted down the road with the opossum in her jaws, the opossum came to its senses, and looked around. The dog, which had very powerful jaws, was just lightly carrying the animal. Then it went back into its "playing dead" position.
The dog dropped the opossum outside the front door, and then both of us went inside. I couldn't find any camera and no one was around to see what the dog had brought in.
So I was frantic to show everyone what the dog had caught. About a half hour later, the family returned, and I asked if they'd seen that big white opossum the dog had left by the door. And they said no.
The opossum simply came out of its "playing dead" state and walked away.
When possoms go catatonic, they are not really "playing." What happens is that their brain over-fires from stimulation, and they basically pass out, often losing bowel control at the same time. Word the wise: you do NOT want to get possum crap on you. Seriously: it's unbelievably foul stuff. In any case, after a while a possum's brain will "reboot" and it will come out of the catatonia and wander off.
A fox will do the same thing, by the way. Knowing that might save you a finger if you handle live fox very much. I had one fox go rigid on me once, and I set him aside thinking he might be dead but ... well, we'll see. Not any mark on him. By the time I had sorted out the dogs, the fox and sprung back to life and was gone! When a fox hits a net on a bolt they will sometimes go rigid for a minute or two. Scruff the neck and work the fox out of the net from the feet up to the head. Not easy if you are all alone!
P
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