Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbomb here with another classic episode for you. In
Speaker 1: this one, we delve into the wonders of the North
Speaker 1: American apossum, one of my very favorite trash eating marsupials.
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbomb Here. If you live in
Speaker 1: North America, you've probably seen a Virginia apossum, a classification
Speaker 1: to Delphis Virginiana. Maybe the unfortunate creature was dead on
Speaker 1: the road, or maybe it was very much alive on
Speaker 1: your porch eating garbage in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: But in either case you might have thought, oh, gross,
Speaker 1: a possum. But you would have been off base on
Speaker 1: several counts. First of all, possums live in Australia and
Speaker 1: are also a marsupial, which means they raise their young
Speaker 1: in a pouch like a kangaroo. But there are completely
Speaker 1: different species and the animal currently snuggling with a half
Speaker 1: eaten bag of Dourrido's at the bottom of a curbside
Speaker 1: trash can in North Carolina, which is correctly and a possum.
Speaker 1: We spoke with Richard Otsfeld, senior scientist at the Carrey
Speaker 1: Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York. He said,
Speaker 1: folks get very confused about this.
Speaker 2: I've had people tell me triumphantly that they discovered building
Speaker 2: plans for possum nest boxes and that they planned to
Speaker 2: install dozens of them to encourage a possums to multiply
Speaker 2: on their property. But when I looked up the plans,
Speaker 2: they were designed for brush tailed possums in Australia, completely
Speaker 2: useless for possums in North America. So with that part settled,
Speaker 2: A possums aren't that gross, even if they wouldn't mind
Speaker 2: taking that moldy pad tie from the back of your
Speaker 2: refrigerator off of your hands. They may look a little creepy,
Speaker 2: what with that long, hairless, prehensile tail, the mouthful of
Speaker 2: haphazard teeth, and the beady eyes, but A possums are
Speaker 2: the fastidiously groomed and most likely disease free wildlife heroes
Speaker 2: of your neighborhood. It's a common misconception, possibly prompted by
Speaker 2: their bumbling swagger, that A possums often carry rabies or
Speaker 2: a distemper. In fact, they rarely get these diseases because
Speaker 2: their body temperature is too low to make them susceptible.
Speaker 2: Not only do a possums not carry these diseases, the
Speaker 2: presence of an apossum in your yard is your best
Speaker 2: bet for combating lime disease. A two thousand and nine
Speaker 2: study explored whether black legged ticks the disease vector four
Speaker 2: lime disease might be regulated by wildlife that they parasitize.
Speaker 2: Of fifteen forest dwelling mammals and ground nesting birds, a
Speaker 2: possums were the only ones to destroy the vast majority
Speaker 2: of all of the black legged ticks that tried to
Speaker 2: feed on them, over ninety five percent. Ostfeld, who co
Speaker 2: authored the study, said, our calculations indicated that a single
Speaker 2: apossum is capable of killing several thousand larval ticks per
Speaker 2: week during the late summer peak. We also know that
Speaker 2: of those ticks that do successfully feed on an apossum,
Speaker 2: only a small fraction will become infected with the lime
Speaker 2: disease Bacterium, so apossums are protective in two ways, killing
Speaker 2: ticks and preventing infection. A study by the same research team,
Speaker 2: published in July twenty eighteen and the journal Ecology, found
Speaker 2: that tick borne disease risk was reduced in areas where
Speaker 2: a possums were present. For an animal that does more
Speaker 2: than its fair share of hobbling into traffic and is
Speaker 2: known for flopping over like a corpse at the mere
Speaker 2: swiff of danger, apossums are perhaps surprisingly intelligent to begin with.
Speaker 2: Weak eyesight and a nocturnal nature both contribute to the
Speaker 2: fact that you're probably more familiar with the sight of
Speaker 2: a dead apossum than a live one. In addition, their
Speaker 2: primary defense mechanism, playing dead is almost entirely involuntary, a
Speaker 2: reaction to extreme stress that leaves the apossum in a
Speaker 2: coma for a few minutes to a couple of hours,
Speaker 2: and a comatose possum can take a beating that would
Speaker 2: kill other animals their size. This, then, is a great
Speaker 2: strategy if your mortal enemy is a bear, but not
Speaker 2: so great if it's a toyota. So, if, for example,
Speaker 2: your dog corners on a possum one night in the backyard,
Speaker 2: don't worry. The apossum may hiss and show its teeth
Speaker 2: at an attempt to look scary because it's frightened, but
Speaker 2: the last thing at wants is to tangle with your
Speaker 2: four legged friend, it will invary, lay down, and play
Speaker 2: dead until the threat gets bored and passes A. Possums
Speaker 2: are non aggressive, docile creatures, far more afraid than they
Speaker 2: are to be feared, and they're also fastidiously clean. Like cats,
Speaker 2: opossums are constantly grooming themselves with their paws and tongue,
Speaker 2: partly in order to make sure they're parasite free, but
Speaker 2: also to keep themselves cool. They lack sweat glands, so
Speaker 2: grooming is like apossum air conditioning, and they do it
Speaker 2: to keep themselves smelling like well nothing. As we've established, A,
Speaker 2: possums aren't great at protecting themselves in a stand off
Speaker 2: with a predator, so it behooves them to stay odor neutral.
Speaker 2: Part of the reason apossums have the reputation for being
Speaker 2: smelly has to do with one other defense mechanism, the
Speaker 2: smell of death. Once an a possum goes into its
Speaker 2: theatrical coma, if a predator continues to mess with it,
Speaker 2: the apossum may excrete a smelly mucus from glands in
Speaker 2: its anus. This has been to signal, hey, this a
Speaker 2: possum is definitely dead, and possibly so entirely dead that
Speaker 2: it'll make you sorry you ate it. Speaking of assum
Speaker 2: are really smart about what they eat, because it turns
Speaker 2: out they have great memories. Once an aposum tastes a
Speaker 2: chemical that doesn't agree with it, it will remember and
Speaker 2: avoid the smell of it for a year afterwards. Though
Speaker 2: a possums are immune to some things that would poison
Speaker 2: other mammals, including most snake venoms. Apossums are biologically fascinating,
Speaker 2: which led to some confusion among early Europeans in the
Speaker 2: New World. Their story was the male apossum made it
Speaker 2: through the female apossum's snout, which led to her sneezing
Speaker 2: out her babies into her marsupial pouch. Of course, this
Speaker 2: is not scientifically accurate, but apossums definitely do things a
Speaker 2: little differently. First of all, a male apossum has a
Speaker 2: forked penis, but it's not meant for the female's nostrils.
Speaker 2: Female apossums have a double vagina and twin uteri. Apossum
Speaker 2: embryos develop for about thirteen days until they are large
Speaker 2: enough to migrate down the birth canal and emerge about
Speaker 2: the size of houseflies. To continue developing in the mother's
Speaker 2: pouch Although dozens of them will be born, the mother
Speaker 2: only has thirteen teeth, so that's probably how many will
Speaker 2: be able to survive into adulthood. Today's episode is based
Speaker 2: on the article of possums so darn ugly They're adorable
Speaker 2: on how stuffworks dot Com, written by Jeslynshields. Brain Stuff
Speaker 2: is production by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuffworks
Speaker 2: dot Com, and it is produced by Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.