BrainStuff Classics: Why Are Opossums Awesome?

They eat trash and they look a little freaky, but the North American opossum is a smart, clean, disease-fighting, and all-around fascinating creature. Learn why in this classic episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/opossums-so-darn-ugly-theyre-adorable.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Lauren Vogelbomb here with another classic episode for you. In
this one, we delve into the wonders of the North
American apossum, one of my very favorite trash eating marsupials.
Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbomb Here. If you live in

(00:24):
North America, you've probably seen a Virginia apossum, a classification
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

(00:47):
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,

(01:09):
folks get very confused about this.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
I've had people tell me triumphantly that they discovered building
plans for possum nest boxes and that they planned to
install dozens of them to encourage a possums to multiply
on their property. But when I looked up the plans,
they were designed for brush tailed possums in Australia, completely
useless for possums in North America. So with that part settled,
A possums aren't that gross, even if they wouldn't mind

(01:34):
taking that moldy pad tie from the back of your
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

(01:55):
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

(02:16):
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

(02:38):
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,

(02:58):
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

(03:20):
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

(03:41):
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

(04:04):
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

(04:24):
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,

(04:46):
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

(05:08):
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

(05:29):
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

(05:50):
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

(06:12):
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.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
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