EXPLORING NATURE: POSSUMS

I had a new visitor to my backyard one recent evening, a possum — or more correctly, an opossum, also known as Didelphis virginiana in scientific circles.

Not to be unkind, but that possum was not a lovely creature. I thought it resembled a big gray rat. Its pointy snout and long, scaly tail certainly looked rat-like.

The possum is a cat-sized animal that is among the oldest, most primitive creatures in the New World. It has been called a living fossil since it has remained unchanged for at least 50 million years.

It likes living in hollow trees and logs, but will also shelter in wood piles, rock piles, under buildings and in attics. It will also take over abandoned burrows dug by other animals and it is found statewide, except in the Trans-Pecos region and part of the Panhandle.

Possums can hang by their tail from tree branches and they have a varied diet, eating rodents, young rabbits, birds, insects, frogs, fruits, berries and vegetables.

I hope possums have a happy life, because they certainly don’t have a long one. Baby possums come into the world about the size of a honeybee and are completely furless and blind. They nurse for seven weeks and eventually open their eyes and go on to live about two years in the wild. Two years.

I recall a cartoon character called Pogo, a cute little possum who offered these sterling words of wisdom: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” I miss old Pogo.

My backyard possum may not live long, but I wish him well the few years he’s around.