picturing this sweet little guy choosing the fonts and a flattering photo, loading the paper in the printer, and then scampering about and posting these all around the neighborhood
My parents used to leave out bowls of avocado for the neighborhood possums. They were not popular with their neighbors but they also did not give a f***
Possums are great, even though only one of these things is actually true.
And it leaves out one of the coolest things, which is that they're immune to a lot of different snake venoms.
The insane number of ticks came from a daffy researcher who fed captive possoms ticks & extrapolated how many they could possibly eat from that, lol.
They can catch & infect others with Lyme disease. But it's rare for the same reason them having rabies is, which is their very low body temperature.
There is no such thing as a mammal that is immune to rabies, period.
And while it's technically not true to say the fatality rate is 100%, it effectively is. Only a handful of people have survived.
So it's terrifying that anti-vaxxers are now pushing back against vaccinating their pets.
The scraggly fur, plus the hairless tail that resembles a rodent's, plus their mouths being so big and so full of needle teeth. To someone who doesn't know anything about rats, they look like a gigantic mutant rat.
I always rush to get the food delivery before the possum does.
We have adorably cute possums in the neighborhood & I'm always delighted to see them, but I do prefer not to share my dinner with them before I even get it.
They also don't really consume 5,000 ticks a year. It was a miscalculation based on how many they *could potentially* eat (if that was all they did).
BUT! They're still awesome. You needn't be "useful" to be valuable and perfect and amazing. Just do no harm. Be (like) an opossum. ❤️
Sure, the possum is just vibing, no need to be magical or useful. I just have a minor terror of rabies and hope there is no one out there who gets bitten and thinks oh no worries possums are immune
They are way more likely to play dead, if cornered or threatened, not bite (it's not impossible, just highly unlikely).
But live and let live, and leave them to their businesses - everyone will be just fine.
NOT immune to rabies, just has an average core body temperature that runs too cool for rabies, making them very unlikely to catch it.
They AREN'T immune to Lyme disease, just seem to not have it as often as they should. However they can carry many other infections, same as most mammals.
Except in Homer, AK, where a ‘possum stowed away in a shipping container & led our town on a crazy hunt to find the “invasive” — eventually Grubby was caught & is an educational animal at the Anchorage Zoo. BUT Grubby was pregnant & left a litter in our town… setting off another seek-and-find hunt!
I live in the city and I know for a fact we have a family of them living in the park behind us. We were feeding some neighborhood cats when we saw the opossums and they were big and fat. We had put out a rotisserie chicken carcass for the cats and the opossums were eating well.
Wife opens the door and sees these eyes staring back at her. Then they all high tail it with one of them stuck in a hole in the fence. Wife used the broom to knock it through! People throw their trash everywhere in the city. These opossums are plump.
I live in a very rural Illinois county and use possums as garbage disposals. Any leftover food the cats won't touch or spoiled food gets tossed in the field behind the house and the possums eat it - chicken and turkey carcasses bones and all.
No harm except the time a harem of them nested in our San Jose attic had 100 babies and peed all over the insulation
It was fun to watch their commute down and up the porch bannister tho I suppose…
That's a fear response. They know humans are predators, and when they do this, they're trying to make you think twice about trying to eat them.
Take the hint and leave them alone.
