Hi everyone. Last night, I went to let Miki out before dinner, it was already dark so I figured I'd check the trap I have set up in the backyard before bringing her out. Good thing I did because I was about to reach my hand in to move the food bowl to the front (so nothing gets stuck in there all night), and I noticed some movement. Ended up face to face with the tiny baby opossum you'll see below. For reference, the bowl in there is about 4 inches in diameter and when I saw him out of the yard, he left through the chain link, and those gaps.are 3 inches wide at best. Personally, I think opossums are freaking adorable and this is the first time I've seen a baby in person, so I was excited. He's so damn cute to me. He's young enough that he wasn't really bothered by me, and I have a video on my phone of him going right back to his meal, tiny crunching noises and all. 

I know a lot of people aren't as happy as I am to see these guys, but whether you think they look cute or not, there's actually a lot of benefits to having them around. Opossums eat a lot of critters that we consider pests, including insects (cockroaches, beetles etc), ticks, slugs and snails, and mice and rats. They'll also eat rotten fruit that's fallen from trees or any other food left out at night-clearly they like cat food. They're also about 97%immune to rabies, and despite having 50 teeth(more than any other land mammal in North America) that look intimidating they’re not likely to bite. Their best defense mechanism is to "play possum", or feign death in the hopes a predator will lose interest. 

Other interesting info about these guys:

Opossums are the only marsupial native to North America. Their babies are born into a pouch after only 11-14 days gestation; they're so tiny that you could fit 20 in a teaspoon. At this point they’re essentially still embryos and they continue to develop in the pouch (Google this if you dare, I saw a video of a kangaroo joey from a few days after birth to a few months and they are freaky looking..I made all my coworkers watch it so they would be scarred for life with me). When they’re big enough to live outside the pouch, they hitch a ride on the mothers back

Opossums have a very short lifespan, only 1 to 2 years. This is mostly because of "predators", including dogs, cats and people. Miki actually found an adult in my backyard once, but it survived by playing dead.

The name opossum comes from an Algonquin Indian word, "apasum," which means "white animal"

Their tails are prehensile(a prehensile tail means a tail that's adapted to hold objects, almost like a fifth limb-in some animals they can actually manipulate objects like a hand, others just use them to hold onto things for balance) and used for grasping branches, carrying nesting material, and maintaining balance. Contrary to popular belief, they don't hang from branches by their tail. They also have opposable thumbs on their hind feet that help them hold onto branches. 

The opossum is actually a pretty ancient animal that existed along with dinosaurs (this one surprised me, so interesting)

There are over 65 species of opossums but only Didelphis virginana is native to North America. Didelphis means "double womb"-a reference to the pouch as a secondary place for babies to develop, and virginiana comes from Virginia where English colonists first noticed them

So on that note, I need to get moving. I don't have to go into work til 1 (yay!) but I'm up early to run and because I went to bed early and didn't see the text from my manager til after I took my Adderall. I'll work on some burning or take a nap later this morning and take Miki for some longer walks since I'll leave her home instead of bringing her to my parents house for only a few hours. It's supposed to rain all afternoon, remnants of the tropical storm I think...hopefully work will be slow and I can just dick around and get paid for it. Hugs to all, and if I do another check in before Leo is back (fairly likely because I'm up early most days), I'll find a non animal related topic. I chose this one because it just happened last night.