They are brutally strong. My dog as a puppy chased everything that was small in my backyard. He brought me squirrels, birds and one night a possum. I have had to put some things out of their misery. Which sucks, but he’s a dog. So he brought me a possum and rather that see it suffer I knocked it in the head with a bat. Hard. I went out the next morning to clean it up and wrap it in a trash bag so it wouldn’t smell all week until trash day.
The thing was gone. No trace. I don’t know how it survived. But ever since then I respected those things on a whole new level.
Something ate a dead possum.
I don’t think so. Unless it was another possum. My backyard isn’t gigantic. But it’s small enough to hear anything else. And I live in the suburbs. It’s not like there are bears or anything.
Well that may explain an interaction between a possum and my sisters dog a few years ago. When I lived with my sister I’d take their mastiff out on her leash and walk her around their property while I had a smoke. We’d do this all times of day and night.
I’d drop the leash if we were in the backyard since it was fenced on two sides and only one gate to get into the front, which I could keep an eye on while she explored. One night, it had to have been about midnight, she was obsessed with this one spot in the tall grass, like, would not leave this spot. So after about five minutes I went to grab her, and she’s fighting me, nose buried in this spot. I finally turn my flashlight on and walk over, and there’s a possum curled up in the tall grass. And she’s licking it…
I pull her away, since, I’m sure dogs shouldn’t be licking wild animals, especially ones that are dead, right? Like, only a dead possum would let another animal lick it, right? Wrong. As I’m looking at it to make sure she didn’t lick up any maggots or was eating any rotten meat, it turned it’s head towards me, eyes squinting, like, “Do you mind? I was having the most wonderful dream of a bath.” It wasn’t playing possum, I’ve seen them do that, it was literally just curled up in grass, sleeping, while a dog 6X its size was licking it head to toe.
One researchers decided to dissect dead opossums’ stomachs and analyze the contents. First off, they don’t eat ticks like people assume. Secondly, she found things like broken glass and a partially undigested shrew.
In conclusion, opossums are metal.
For Australians: they mean American opossums, not Australian possums. Our cute little marsupial friends have appropriately wrinkly brains, thank goodness.
