Oh 'Possum!

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More importantly, a predator can bat it around, claw it, chew on it, even break bones, without eliciting so much as a wriggle. For many wild carnivores, such lifeless cuisine is a turnoff — a response, biologists theorize, that evolved to keep predators from eating diseased prey.

Unless it's an especially bad day for the opossum, the attacker loses interest and walks away. Several minutes — or hours later, the marsupial snaps out of it, alive, though not necessarily unharmed. Studies of opossum populations show a high percentage with multiple healed — over bites and bone fractures. Opossums are tough little rascals. They're even immune to the venom of rattlesnakes and other pit vipers.

A SURVIVOR

The opossum's nocturnal nature undoubtedly helps keep it out of harm's way too. Great horned owls are its most serious natural enemy, second only to its two unnatural enemies, humans and their best friends — dogs.

Even more significantly, the Virginia opossum has proven to be one of nature's most adaptive creatures. From its original territory in the sunny South, the opossum has steadily expanded its range northward into increasingly colder climes. In wintry northern states, opossums commonly emerge into spring with frostbitten tails and ears, but alive nonetheless.

And while the spread of the human species has been the downfall of too many animals, somehow D. virginiana has learned to thrive in our midst. Its omnivorous palate, once limited to such wild fare as insects, frogs and fruit, now rejoices in pet food and garbage, too.

No wonder the opossum is North America's oldest living mammal. It is, quite simply, a survivor against all odds. It was here long before us, and may well be here long after we're ... well, that's an open question. But it's one worth considering the next time you hear a rattle at your trash cans, and shine a flashlight just in time to see a "humble" opossum waddling away, belly full.

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