Have you ever been rough-housing with your brother or sister and you get hit so hard that you decide to give them a scare by "playing 'possum"?
All of us have played 'possum at one time or another. But did you know that opossums also play 'possum? When confronted with a dangerous animal, opossums try to fool their attacker by lying down and "playing dead." Usually the opossum is able to protect himself in this way, but sometimes dogs are not taken in by this trick and continue their attack.
If you ever find a wounded or abandoned opossum it is a good idea to call the Opossum Society (their phone number is 714-536-3538). The volunteer staff at this Society often adopt opossums as pets. It can also provide all kinds of information about the care and handling of opossums. If the animal is wounded, the Society suggests that you trap the animal. Safe traps are available from the County Animal Control Department. Once the opossum is contained, you can release it in the canyons or hills far away from your home, where it will be able to recover from its wounds.
Opossums are beneficial to the Heights because they consume insects and pesky rodents. Even though they provide this "public service," they are still a misunderstood animal. People think they are giant tree rats, such as the picture on the left suggests. When the British explorer Captain John Smith arrived in the Virginia forests in 1612, he saw an opossum for the first time in his life. He wrote to his friends: "An opossum hath a head like a Swine, and a tail like a Rat, and is of the bigness of a Cat."
But actually opossums are not like rats or cats at all. They are marsupials,
that is, they are in the same family of animals as kangaroos. The word
"marsupial" comes from the Latin word marsupium, which
means "pouch." Just like the mother kangaroo, the mother possum
keeps her children in a pouch on her stomach right after they are born.
She can have as many as sixteen little ones in her pouch at one
time! After a few months they crawl out of the pouch and ride on her back
while she searches for food. So if you do not want a lot of possums in
your backyard, make sure you don't leave any pet food sitting around at
night for all of them to find!