North American Marsupial

The other day I came home and was in the garage when my neighbor comes over to ask about a curious animal he had seen under his bird feeder. After talking about it we thought he had seen an Opossum. Generally I think most of us think these to be a southern creature not venturing this far north but over the past decade the opossum has moved into Minnesota presumably with warmer winters making it easier for them to survive.

Sure enough after getting a flashlight and looking under the nearby structure he had a full grown opossum. These are large cat sized creatures with pointy pink nose, grey or black fur with pink feet and a naked pink tail. These are solitary nocturnal animals. They generally move very slowly and when frightened could hiss or growl but generally become unable to flee and fall into a state of involuntary movement laying down and “playing possum”.

Although we’re not accustomed to these animals they are rather unique. They are North America’s only marsupial mammal. The female carries its young in a pouch until they are 2-3 months old and then carries them on her back for another 1-2 months. They eat insects, snails, rodents, berries, over ripe fruit, grasses, leaves, occasional snakes, corn or other vegetables. They are very adaptable and live wherever there is water, food and shelter. They are at home in trees and use their prehensile tail to stabilize themselves but don’t hang by their tail as many people think. They generally live 2- 4 years and are very prone to be killed by predators such as dogs and cats, owls, other wildlife and humans with cars.

Checking the next day the opossum had moved on to where ever it had been living but it got me to thinking. Perhaps I had been too quick to blame the squirrels with the bird feeder being empty in my backyard. I won’t be filling it soon. I don’t believe you have much to fear about opossums as they are very placid animals but I’d like him or her to move on. I don’t want my vegetable garden to get raided this summer.