"Oh Possom, My Possom": What we can learn about acting from the Virginia Opossum

Humans enjoy acting and pretending - on stage, in board games or with children. But for the Virginia Opossum, didelphis virginiana, acting is a life-or-death survival mechanism. Here are four lessons we can learn about acting from North America's only marsupial:

Lesson # 1) Whatever type of acting you want to do - go at your own pace. 

Maybe you want to try out a community theater production before you quit your job and move to LA to make it big?

Photo credit: Public Domain pictures (link)

The opossum, a master of disguise, knows this well and walks at a comfortable pace of about half a mile per hour. At top speed, they can waddle about 3.5 miles per hour. You can easily walk after an opossum. Granted, they are nocturnal animals, so they are walking around in the dark. They have long whiskers to help them navigate. They can climb well thanks to their almost human-like hands, opposable big toes and prehensile tail. They can also swim! 

Hollywood and the opossum world share the motto: "Live fast and die young." These animals only live  to be about 1-2 years old in the wild, 3-4 years in captivity. Female opossums are sexually mature at 6 months old. They have two to three litters per year, and raise about eight young - called joeys (like kangaroos). Males are called jacks and females are called jills. There is no word for a group of opossum because they are solitary creatures. The gestational period for an opossum is 12-13 days! This means that  just 12 or 13 days, less than two weeks after conception, tiny opossums the size of jellybeans will independently crawl into the mother's pouch and latch on to a teat for 55 days. 

Lesson # 2) Acting can be competitive - be aggressive!

Believe in yourself and be aggressive, like the opossum. The opossum does an excellent job acting dangerous - when they are actually harmless. If you startle an opossum, they will hiss and show you their 50 teeth, to convince you they are tough. It's an act.

They drool, a lot. This keeps their mouth clean and aids in digestion. But they are very unlikely to have rabies because their body temperature is too low. 

Just leave them alone and they will not hurt you, or your pets.

Photo credit: Pxfuel (link)

Lesson #3) Commit to your role - and if you fake your own death, be convincing. 

Every great soap opera has the part where you think a character is dead, BUT THEN they re-enter the story and it is revealed that they faked their own death. 

Like gambling addicts, opossums also have to look over their shoulder because predators are out there and they want a tasty, safe meal. Opossums are so committed to their role, they even emit a horrible odor, a rotting smell, that combined with their top-notch performance - wards off predators. Most predators are instinctively drawn to live, moving prey, so while the opossum may get beaten up a bit, playing dead actually keeps them alive. 

Photo credit: Wikipedia Commons (link)

In all seriousness though, this trick is actually not voluntary. The opossum, when faced with a life or death situation, experiences a catatonic state, almost like fainting. They will not respond to stimuli, they leave their eyes open and they won't even blink. Opossums can stay in this state for up to 6 hours. 

Opossums take the phrase "break a leg" very seriously! Skeletons of opossums often reveal healed fractures that would kill most animals. This hardy animal can heal quickly. Some animals have evolved to escape, others to fight back when faced with a predator. Opossums have evolved to feign death and survive getting roughed up. They are so tough that one opossum drank a whole bottle of bourbon, enough to kill some humans, and didn't even have a hang-over the next day.  

Lesson #4) Support your community - give back.

When you make it big, remember where you came from. Donate, volunteer, and mentor. Be like the opossum - who eats 5,000 ticks every season - including ticks that carry lyme disease. They also act as part of nature's clean-up crew - eating carrion and roadkill. Opossums even eat venomous snakes, because they are immune! We are even learning about the aging process by studying the genetics of opossums that cause their early aging process. Plus, they are an important part of the ecosystem, acting as both predator and prey in food webs across most of the United States. 

Photo credit: Pixabay user Jalynn (link)

Lesson #5) Hang in there!

Keep trying and you will improve! Have a safety net in place, like the opossum has their prehensile tail. While it's possible for them to hang upside down, it's a myth that they sleep like that, or hang for extended periods of time. Opossums mostly use their tail for balance, to catch them if they lose their grip while climbing, and also for carrying grass & twigs back to their den. Never pick up an opossum by their tail. This can cause serious damage to their spine or dislocate their tail bones. The best way to capture them if necessary is to toss a blanket over them and scoop them up like a cat, and then place into a travel crate for relocation. I recommend calling a humane professional. 

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It's time that the opossum gets all fandom they truly deserve for being unique, fascinating, harmless and beneficial animals. Also, they are pretty darn cute. I mean really, jacks & jills & joeys?? Adorbs. You can join their fan club by becoming a member of the Opossum Society. 

Or at the very least, slow down when you see them on the road at night. If you have opossums in your yard, let them be, they are eating ticks back there, or if you must relocate them, choose a humane trapping and relocation service. You can even try to attract opossums to visit your yard by choosing native plants for your yard. 

Sources & Further Reading:

https://opossumsocietyus.org/

https://www.caryinstitute.org/news-insights/media-coverage/opossums-killers-ticks

https://www.livescience.com/56182-opossum-facts.html

https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/opossum

https://podtail.com/en/podcast/species/opossum/

https://opossumsocietyus.org/how-to-attract-opossums-to-your-property/

Opossum: It's Amazing Story

Update: Nono is Free!

Hello friends,

I just heard from Corey Basham, who was taking care of a barn owl named Nono. See my original post about Nono here. 

I met Corey Basham at Nature Camp back in August. I just got word from him that Nono has recently been released! 

"After fattening her up significantly and doing some live prey exercises she was released in a park on the edges of the city [Richmond]." -Corey

Photo credit: Corey Basham

It brings me great joy to know that Nono is out there, hunting mice and using the incredible abilities that owls have adapted over the last 80 million years. Thank you to Corey for keeping Nono safe and well fed during her recovery. 

You can learn more about these incredible animals here. 

Bald Eagle Surprises Great Blue Heron

 

One of the best things about participating in Arlington Regional Master Naturalists is getting to meet some really wonderful people - fellow nature nerds. One of my classmates, Kelly Geer, a former Wildlife Biologist and all around cool person, was kind enough to share this footage above with me for use on this blog. (Thank you Kelly!)

Kelly first noticed the fish in the water that seemed to be swimming strangely, on its side. Then upon closer inspection, she realized it was actually dead and floating, with turtles nibbling on it from below, pushing it forward. Then, the Great Blue Heron (GBH) (the largest heron in North America), stole the fish from the turtles and attempted to eat it. While GBHs prefer live prey, they are not above opportunistic scavenging. As seen in the video above, the GBH attempts to swallow the fish, but has trouble because of its size. It appears to be dunking the fish into the water in an attempt to lubricate or reposition it. The heron is smart to be cautious, as choking to death is a real danger for this bird. It's long slender neck, which gives it the powerful spear hunting method, also makes it difficult to swallow bigger prey and its possible the food can get stuck, killing both animals. 

Suddenly, a bald eagle swoops in. 

While the Bald Eagle has an excellent marketing team, the truth is that these birds often steal food from smaller birds, so it may have been trying to steal the fish. However, some sources suggest that Bald Eagles are occasional predators of adult Great Blue Herons - so that could also be what is going on. Based on the dramatic expression and quick exit made by the GBH, it seems the heron did not want to stick around to find out if the eagle wanted his meal or to make him a meal.  The eagle doesn't try to find the dropped fish and seems to fly off after the heron. 

And then, Kelly told me with a smile, the turtles resumed munching. It sounds like a fable: The Turtles, the Heron & the Eagle - in which the turtles, despite their speed and size, are ultimately victorious in the battle for lunch. 

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Great Blue Herons are beautiful, fascinating birds. At 4.5 feet tall, they are taller than some children, but they weigh only about 5lbs (about the same weight as a pack of printer paper) because their bones, like most birds, are extremely lightweight. While flying they actually have a 6-foot wingspan! This photo of a young GBH looks like a dinosaur because, well, birds are dinosaurs. Paleontologists are agreed that modern birds are descendents of theropod dinosaurs. More on this exciting topic here and I would encourage you to share this fact with a small child that loves dinosaurs.  

This drawing of the skeleton of a Great Blue Heron in an old book, titled Osteologia Avium, depicts the impressive adaptations this species has made to survive. Here is a real skeleton, for reference, from the New York State Museum. 

Photo credit: Biodiversity Heritage Library (link)

That wild s-shaped neck evolved so they could pack a powerful and fast punch when spearing fish while they stand silently above in shallow waters. Macken Murphy talks more about how the GBH hunts in his Species Podcast episode on Great Blue Herons. The Great Blue Heron's famous colors help them blend in with the grey/blue sky above. All About Birds, a fantastic resource on birds by the Cornell School of Ornithology, lists the food on their menu as such:

"fish, amphibians, reptiles, small mammals, insects, and other birds. They grab smaller prey in their strong mandibles or use their dagger-like bills to impale larger fish, often shaking them to break or relax the sharp spines before gulping them down."

Another cool fact about Great Blue Herons is that, while they are solo hunters, they are actually social animals and nest in groups, sometimes just a few pairs but often larger groups with dozens of couples. Both male and female take turns incubating the eggs. The young can typically fledge about two months after hatching, but the parents continue to feed the young birds for a few additional weeks.

Photo credit: Flickr User Nature80020 (link)

This week in ARMN we are studying Ornithology - including how to bird by ear, why birds are so important (hint: many reasons), what we can do to help protect Eastern Bluebirds from its arch nemesis - the common and invasive house sparrow (aka HOSP to people in the know), and how caterpillars are a crucial food source for many types of baby birds because of their high levels of carotenoids. 

Fun fact: It takes between 6,000 and 9,000 caterpillars to raise one brood of 3 Carolina Chickadees. Source: Nature's Best Hope by Doug Tallamy

Pro tip: Oak trees host the most number of caterpillar species of any tree, 557! So if you are going to plant a tree, plant an oak. If you love birds, you can help them by planting natives, or at least not planting invasive plants that take up resources, crowd out natives and don't even contribute to the energy cycle. To find out what other plants you should put in your yard to help raise the thousands of caterpillars needed by local bird families - use the Native Plant Finder tool. 

Sources:

https://www.livescience.com/are-birds-dinosaurs.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theropoda

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Great_Blue_Heron/lifehistory

Nature's Best Hope by Doug Tallamy

https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Birds/Bald-Eagle

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2010/mar/28/eagles-find-herons-easy-prey/

http://naturemappingfoundation.org/natmap/facts/great_blue_heron_k6.html

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6ntSNG1xvuVx2qOJ0hK1HD

Recommendation: Species Podcast

I listen to this podcast almost every day: https://www.mackenmurphy.org/species

Macken Murphy does a fantastic job digging into each animal species and finding the surprising, the curious, the unusual and the impressive characteristics about animals many of us overlook. 

Some of my favorite episodes are:

• His first episode, the Opossum
• Kea (a type of parrot)
• Archerfish (and his argument about fish intelligence)
• Fruit fly (possibly the most well studied animal on earth)

All of them are good actually, it is difficult to select favorites. This is the podcast that inspired me to begin this blog, so I highly recommend it. 

Coming soon: An article on Great Blue Herons & Bald Eagles, with a fantastic video clip courtesy of my friend and ARMN classmate, Kelly Geer.