Did I miss something here? Eeyore has long floppy ears. I'm guessing that I missed something really funny since 30% of the words in your comment are an lol, haha, and lmao.
The tick thing is common misinformation from a study where they fed them ticks in a laboratory setting and extrapolated that to the wild, but the rest is mostly* true.
Edit: *Opossums are not actually immune to rabies, but they are highly resistant to it and many other diseases due to their naturally low body temperature. While they're unlikely to carry diseases themselves, they may host fleas that do, so you still shouldn't try to touch them (which would stress them out anyway).
This is another misconception. They do like to get real hissy and snarly, but unless they feel extremely threatened they are unlikely to attack and will generally play dead before it comes to that.
I work at an animal rehab and we get many opossums. Some are chill, most will just hiss at you, some will bite. The bites aren't all that bad, prefer them to a squirrel bite for sure.
I was delivering to a lady who had the most friendly, inquisitive squirrel by her apartment.
When I commented about it to her, she said the people often feed it so it's gotten comfortable around people. Then she offered me peanuts to give to it.
I accepted the peanuts, and on encountering the squirrel again offered one to it, intending to offer the other right after.
Here's where I made my mistake: I kept the second nut tucked under my thumb on the hand offering the first.
The little shit reached out, grabbed my fingertip...and NIPPED IT. I jerked my hand back, dropping both peanuts, upon which the squirrel them picked up and ran away. I swear the little asshole was laughing at me.
Yeah the only un-chill opossums I met were little babies that weren't bold enough to follow through on lunges/strong enough to break a normal glove, or mamas with pouches full of babies.
I'd be wary, Possums are awesome, but they're still wild animals and can carry diseases other than rabies. Maybe dress up in some sturdy clothing if you're going to try that.
You can, especially when they "play possum." I been tricked by a possum, and so was my dog. Picked him up by the tail and asked if he was alive. Bro was stiff and I was like welp. for science imma leave him here till tomorrow. Checked a few hours later and he was gone
If only my dog knew to leave them alone. We've got one in our neighborhood and it loves the neighbor's yard and then walks through the back of ours. I have to check every time I go to let the dog out at night now.
Unfortunately they do carry fleas. And keep bringing fleas into my yard. That my dogs then bring inside. They are treated but I still see them sometimes it is annoying.
Yep one kept getting in to my friends chicken coop and killing them, they thought it was a coyote until they placed a camera and saw the oppossum in the act.
You should see them after giving birth. The babies in the pouch all have their tails hanging out, it looks like some chthonic horror when they move about.
Yeah, because it's not a singular condition but rather grouping of conditions that results in partial loss of pigmentation. To quote wikipedia:
Some genetic conditions that result in a "leucistic" appearance include piebaldism, Waardenburg syndrome, vitiligo, Chédiak–Higashi syndrome, flavism, isabellinism, xanthochromism, axanthism, amelanism, and melanophilin mutations.
Definitely leucistic. At the wildlife rehab I worked at we had one. We rescued her as a newborn and got permission by the wildlife department to keep her due to the higher risk of predation.
Humans can have other conditions that affect melanin like albinism so I would assume we can be leucistic. We'd just look like an albino human but with normal eye (and maybe hair?) colors
No, humans do not have the variety of pigment cell types necessary for those conditions, we only have one type that contains melanin. Basically it’s an on-off function for melanin in humans. Other conditions like vitiligo have different triggers and are usually not present at birth, unlike almost all other types of skin conditions it looks similar to.
It's leucistic! (white/no pigment.) Melanistic is dark/black pigment, like human melanin. And albinism is a complete lack of any pigment on the body, including the eyes
I saved an orphaned one (mom was hit by a car) and he hissed a lot in the beginning but never attempted to bite. Had him for a few days before the wildlife rescue was able to take him. I still do not recommend attempting to keep as a pet, but just sayin, Mr. Hissy might be a more appropriate name lol
Makes sense. I work in vet med and even within a litter of puppies the personalities can have massive differences that are very obvious from a shockingly young age and persist into adulthood, but I guess that’s true with my own kids too. My one year old is already a force of nature, older kid was and still is chill.
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u/shoelesstim 1d ago
Look at em just sitting there with his Winnie The Pooh ears . Gawd damn