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Can Opossums Defend Themselves?

Sep 12, 2024

2 min read

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The simple answer is no, not very well. While opossums can kill rats, mice, and even poisonous snakes they are not good at open combat against predators. They are really quite timid, fearful of most everything and would rather avoid life-threatening situations. Opossums are a relatively easy kill for any predator that finds them.  Although nearly defenseless they do have some interesting and unique survival mechanisms.


Nature has given them an entirely different set of tools than many other animals and their purpose can all be summed up in one word; stealth.  Opossum have very little natural body odor, hence it is more difficult for predators to find them by smell.  The padding on their feet is very soft and supple; they make virtually no noise when moving.


The opossum is among the quietest of all wild animals.  In dim lighting the color of their fur blends in with much of their surroundings making them very difficult to see.  They are hard to find.  


They also have senses which give them advance warning of approaching danger.  They are very nearsighted, but at close range they can see quite well in the dimmest of light.  Their world is dominated primarily by scent and touch.  Sight and sound play very small roles in their survival.  


Their sense of smell is among the best of any animal in the world.  Their long nose gives them an incredible sense of smell and their even longer whiskers gives a sphere of sensory input around them that far outrivals our own sense of personal space.  Each whisker is independently wired directly to their brain.  That input from the whiskers gives them an image of their immediate surroundings in a way we cannot fully understand.  It is probably similar in some ways to the image a bat gets from its sonar.  They even have whisker-like hairs on the ends of their fingers to aid that sense of touch. While stealth is their strong point, if that fails they have a passive defense system which makes most predators look elsewhere for a meal.  


If placed in a position where they are being attacked their passive defenses kick in.  They will open their mouth very wide to show 50 sharp teeth in an attempt to cause fear.  If that fails they will ‘play dead.’  Playing dead is not voluntary; they are going into full system shock, similar to a human fainting.  Their heartbeat slows, breathing is almost non-existent and sometimes an unpleasant fluid will leak out of their mouth (yuk!).  If that isn’t enough another fluid may come out of a gland near their tail and this fluid smells like rotted flesh. They’ll appear to be dead, diseased, and rotting – not an attractive meal for any predator, in fact the kind of thing that should be avoided. If all goes well and the opossums is left alone it will recover in anywhere from as little as 30 minutes up to several hours. At that point it will wake up and be on its way. 


Sep 12, 2024

2 min read

4

44

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