Virginia Opossum Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
The Virginia Opossum (Didelphis virginiana) is the only marsupial found in North America. A solitary and nocturnal animal about the size of a domestic cat, it is a successful opportunist and is found throughout North America from coast to coast (introduced to California in 1910), and from Central America and Mexico to southern Canada and seems to be still expanding its range northward. It is often seen near towns, rummaging through garbage cans, or dead by the side of the road.
The Virginia Opossum is an excellent climber and is largely arboreal, though it is equally at home on the ground. Its diet is largely carrion, but also includes insects, worms, frogs, birds, and small animals of every kind; plus fruit, berries, and grains.
Virginia Opossums nest in burrows abandoned by other creatures, hollow logs, and other sheltered places, lining the area with leaves. Gestation is less than two weeks, and the young are carried for the next two months in the mother's pouch—which unlike the forward or backward-facing pouches of most marsupials, has a vertical entrance—and suckle from one or another of her 13 nipples.
The Virginia Opossum is noted for its reaction to threat, which is to feign death. This is called "playing (o)possum". At other times, however, it will put on an aggressive display, hissing, screeching, and showing its teeth.
The Virginia Opossum is the original animal named "opossum". The word comes from Algonquian wapathemwa, not Greek or Latin, so the plural is opossums. It is usually pronounced without the leading "O". It has given its name to many other animals that resemble in appearance and behaviour: the South American opossums (which are reasonably close relatives) and the possums of Australia (which are only very distantly related).
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Virginia Opossum tracks generally show five finger-like toes in both the fore and hind prints. The hind tracks are unusual and distinctive due to the opossum's opposable thumb, which generally prints at an angle of 90 degrees or greater to the other fingers (sometimes near 180 degrees). Individual adult tracks generally measure 1.875 inches long by 2 inches wide (4.8 x 5.1 cm) for the fore prints and 2.5 inches long by 2.25 inches wide (6.4 x 5.7 cm) for the hind prints. Opossums have claws on all fingers fore and hind except on the two thumbs (in the photograph, claw marks show as small holes just beyond the tip of each finger); these generally show in the tracks but may not. In a soft medium, such as the mud in this photograph, the foot pads will clearly show (these are the deep, darker areas where the fingers and toes meet the rest of the hand or foot, which have been filled with plant debris by wind due to the advanced age of the tracks).
The tracks in the photograph were made while the opossum was walking with its typical pacing gait. The four aligned toes on the hind print show the approximate direction of travel.
In a pacing gait, the limbs on one side of the body are moved simultaneously, just prior to moving both limbs on the other side of the body. This is illustrated in the pacing diagram, which explains why the left-fore and right-hind tracks are generally found together (and vice versa). However, if the opossum were not walking (e.g. running), the prints would fall in a different pattern. Other animals who generally employ a pacing gait are raccoons, bears, skunks, badgers, woodchucks, porcupines and beavers.
When pacing, the opossum's stride generally measures from 7 to 10 inches, or approximately 18 to 25 cm (in the pacing diagram the stride is 8.5 inches, where one grid square is equal to one square inch). To determine the stride of a pacing gait, measure from the tip (just beyond the fingers or toes in the direction of travel, disregarding claw marks) of one set of fore/hind tracks to the tip of the next set. By taking careful stride and track-size measurements, one can usually determine what species of animal created a set of tracks, even when individual track details are vague or obscured.
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