BrainStuff Classics: Why Are Opossums Awesome?

to Delphis Virginiana. Maybe the unfortunate creature was dead on the road, or maybe it was very much alive on your porch eating garbage in the middle of the night. But in either case you might have thought, oh, gross, a possum. But you would have been off base on several counts. First of all, possums live in Australia and are also a marsupial, which means they raise their young

in a pouch like a kangaroo. But there are completely different species and the animal currently snuggling with a half eaten bag of Dourrido's at the bottom of a curbside trash can in North Carolina, which is correctly and a possum. We spoke with Richard Otsfeld, senior scientist at the Carrey Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York. He said, folks get very confused about this.

refrigerator off of your hands. They may look a little creepy, what with that long, hairless, prehensile tail, the mouthful of haphazard teeth, and the beady eyes, but A possums are the fastidiously groomed and most likely disease free wildlife heroes of your neighborhood. It's a common misconception, possibly prompted by their bumbling swagger, that A possums often carry rabies or

a distemper. In fact, they rarely get these diseases because their body temperature is too low to make them susceptible. Not only do a possums not carry these diseases, the presence of an apossum in your yard is your best bet for combating lime disease. A two thousand and nine study explored whether black legged ticks the disease vector four lime disease might be regulated by wildlife that they parasitize.

Of fifteen forest dwelling mammals and ground nesting birds, a possums were the only ones to destroy the vast majority of all of the black legged ticks that tried to feed on them, over ninety five percent. Ostfeld, who co authored the study, said, our calculations indicated that a single apossum is capable of killing several thousand larval ticks per

week during the late summer peak. We also know that of those ticks that do successfully feed on an apossum, only a small fraction will become infected with the lime disease Bacterium, so apossums are protective in two ways, killing ticks and preventing infection. A study by the same research team, published in July twenty eighteen and the journal Ecology, found that tick borne disease risk was reduced in areas where

a possums were present. For an animal that does more than its fair share of hobbling into traffic and is known for flopping over like a corpse at the mere swiff of danger, apossums are perhaps surprisingly intelligent to begin with. Weak eyesight and a nocturnal nature both contribute to the fact that you're probably more familiar with the sight of

a dead apossum than a live one. In addition, their primary defense mechanism, playing dead is almost entirely involuntary, a reaction to extreme stress that leaves the apossum in a coma for a few minutes to a couple of hours, and a comatose possum can take a beating that would kill other animals their size. This, then, is a great strategy if your mortal enemy is a bear, but not so great if it's a toyota. So, if, for example, your dog corners on a possum one night in the backyard,

don't worry. The apossum may hiss and show its teeth at an attempt to look scary because it's frightened, but the last thing at wants is to tangle with your four legged friend, it will invary, lay down, and play dead until the threat gets bored and passes A. Possums are non aggressive, docile creatures, far more afraid than they

are to be feared, and they're also fastidiously clean. Like cats, opossums are constantly grooming themselves with their paws and tongue, partly in order to make sure they're parasite free, but also to keep themselves cool. They lack sweat glands, so grooming is like apossum air conditioning, and they do it to keep themselves smelling like well nothing. As we've established, A, possums aren't great at protecting themselves in a stand off with a predator, so it behooves them to stay odor neutral.

Part of the reason apossums have the reputation for being smelly has to do with one other defense mechanism, the smell of death. Once an a possum goes into its theatrical coma, if a predator continues to mess with it, the apossum may excrete a smelly mucus from glands in its anus. This has been to signal, hey, this a possum is definitely dead, and possibly so entirely dead that it'll make you sorry you ate it. Speaking of assum are really smart about what they eat, because it turns

out they have great memories. Once an aposum tastes a chemical that doesn't agree with it, it will remember and avoid the smell of it for a year afterwards. Though a possums are immune to some things that would poison other mammals, including most snake venoms. Apossums are biologically fascinating, which led to some confusion among early Europeans in the New World. Their story was the male apossum made it through the female apossum's snout, which led to her sneezing

out her babies into her marsupial pouch. Of course, this is not scientifically accurate, but apossums definitely do things a little differently. First of all, a male apossum has a forked penis, but it's not meant for the female's nostrils. Female apossums have a double vagina and twin uteri. Apossum embryos develop for about thirteen days until they are large enough to migrate down the birth canal and emerge about

the size of houseflies. To continue developing in the mother's pouch Although dozens of them will be born, the mother only has thirteen teeth, so that's probably how many will be able to survive into adulthood. Today's episode is based on the article of possums so darn ugly They're adorable on how stuffworks dot Com, written by Jeslynshields. Brain Stuff is production by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com, and it is produced by Tyler Klang.