CC BY-SA 2.5 · Cody Pope · source
Quick Facts
- Type
- Mammal
- Size
- 35–55 cm body length (plus 25–50 cm tail)
- Weight
- 1.9–6 kg
- Habitat
- Forest, wetlands, and suburban areas
- Diet
- Omnivore — fruit, insects, carrion, and small vertebrates
- Active Time
- Nocturnal, most active at night
- Lifespan
- 1–2 years in the wild
Field Notes
- Opossums eat thousands of ticks per season, as ticks attach but are groomed off and swallowed — making them valuable for reducing Lyme disease risk.
- Virginia opossums are immune to the venom of most North American pit vipers, including rattlesnakes and copperheads, due to a neutralising peptide in their blood.
About the Virginia Opossum
The Virginia opossum is the only marsupial native to North America and one of the continent's most ancient mammal lineages, unchanged for over 70 million years. When severely threatened it enters an involuntary catatonic state — playing possum — in which it lies motionless with lips drawn back, emitting a putrid smell to mimic a rotting corpse. Females carry up to 13 tiny young in a fur-lined pouch. Opossums possess natural immunity to the venom of rattlesnakes, copperheads, and cottonmouths, and they eat large numbers of disease-carrying ticks.
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