This makes it possible for the opossum to pick up things or hang onto thin branches much better that most other mammals. The opossum is a cat-sized mammal that resembles a silver rat, with its naked ears, long scaly tail, and silver-tipped fur.
The face of the opossum is almost pure white, with four rows of whiskers, a pink nose, and eyes like black shoe buttons. The average adult is 24 to 26 inches long, including the tail, and usually weighs between 6 to 12 pounds.
The opossum is a passive animal, but looks ferocious when it displays all 50 teeth, drools, and hisses. Due to questions about its intellectual capacity, Vernon Bailey, former chief naturalist for the U. The larger the brain case in relation to the total body size, the more intelligence a creature is.
The opossum may have the smallest brain-to-body ratio among mammals, but it does have an acute sense of hearing and smell. Opossums are nocturnal animals, but they are often seen during the day when their natural habitat has been destroyed, when they are searching for food, or when young and inexperienced youngsters — not yet street-wise — are looking for food. Ideal opossum habitat is woodland, farmland, and suburban neighborhoods with water nearby.
But the opossum is very adaptable and will thrive in nearly any habitat, from wilderness to inner city. It is a common visitor to backyards that provide the basic necessities, such as a source of water, food, and appropriate den sites.
The opossum is not particular, and will live almost anywhere. Opossums are often transient, using whatever den is most convenient within their somewhat loose home range, rather than returning to a particular den each day. Females with young tend to be the exception, using the same den sites for weeks at a time.
Opossums often use the abandoned burrows of other animals rather than digging their own. Other potential den sites include woodpiles, rocky crevices, culverts, barns, drainpipes, thickets, and in urban neighborhoods under porches, buildings, and storage sheds. The opossum is omnivorous, feeding upon almost anything that it can find or catch: rats, mice, moles, slugs, snails, shrews, worms, beetles, ants, grasshoppers, crickets, frogs, garbage, fruit especially persimmons , corns, berries, and even road kill.
That habit gets about 8. An opossum seeing an object on a road during the night may believe it to be road kill, and may either freeze in the headlight of a car, or try to run away. As opossums run very slowly, they often get killed. Opossums also enjoy eating snakes, and will kill and eat all snakes including poisonous ones. They are immune to the snake venom, and relish copperhead, water moccasins, rattlesnakes, and others. Opossums are solitary animals, except when females are with their young, or for brief interludes during breeding season.
Only male opossums are territorial, and they will fight violently during mating season. In Virginia most opossums produce only one litter a year, but in some southern states, two litters are common, while a third litter a year has been observed.
The age of maturity for males is 8 months, and for females 6 months. While foraging during the night, the male opossum smells a female in heat.
Female opossums will accept a male only once during the estrus period. They are about 2. Though they aren't picky about where they hang out, opossums love trees and will stay aloft in trees as much as possible. They also prefer areas that are wet, like marshes, swamps and streams. Opossums are nocturnal, which means they are awake at night and sleep during the day. They spend nights searching for food. Though they don't hibernate, opossums do slow down during the winter.
They live in burrows that they fill with dry leaves or even shredded paper, and fat reserves help keep them warm. In the summer, they will lick themselves and cover their fur in spit to keep cool, according to the Animal Diversity Web. Opossums are known for scavenging though trash. They are omnivores, which means they eat both vegetation and meat, and they aren't picky. In the wild, they will munch on nuts, grass and fruit.
They will also hunt insects, mice, wild birds, snakes, worms and chickens. In the city they will eat roadkill and garbage. Males have forked penises. It was once thought that the reason for this physical feature was that they bred with the female's nose.
It was thought that once the babies were born, the mother would sneeze the babies into her pouch. Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. Opossum in tree click to enlarge. Opossums mating click to enlarge. The right side roll click to enlarge. Virginia Opossum click to enlarge. Share this: Twitter Facebook Email. Like this: Like Loading Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:.
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