The animal most Americans encounter in their yards, the one that plays dead, hisses dramatically when startled, and occasionally raids the compost, is technically an opossum. Its formal common name is Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana), and “opossum” is what naturalists, state wildlife agencies, and scientific literature use for any member of the order Didelphimorphia, all of which are native to the Americas.

“Possum,” the informal version that most Americans use in everyday speech, is actually the correct common name for an entirely different group of animals: the possums of Australia and nearby regions, which belong to the order Diprotodontia. They’re marsupials like opossums, but they’re not closely related. Different continents, different evolutionary history, different animals.

So when someone says “there’s a possum in my garbage,” they’re probably talking about a Virginia opossum, using a shortened nickname that technically belongs to a different species on the other side of the world. Language is strange.

Why Both Names Are Used for the North American Animal

When European settlers named the animals they found in the New World, they were working fast and with imperfect reference points. Captain John Smith documented the Virginia opossum in the early 1600s, using a word derived from the Algonquian aposoum, meaning “white animal.” The initial transcription was “opassom,” and it eventually settled into “opossum.”

The “o” at the beginning of the word gets dropped in casual speech pretty naturally — English speakers do this constantly with words over time, and regional accents accelerate it. In the American South especially, “possum” has been the colloquial standard for generations. The Merriam-Webster dictionary lists “possum” as a valid informal variant of “opossum” specifically in reference to the North American animal.

So in practical, everyday American English, calling the Virginia opossum a possum is completely understandable and you won’t confuse anyone. In scientific and wildlife management contexts, “opossum” is the appropriate term.

What They Actually Are (And Why They’re Worth Understanding)

Virginia opossums are the only marsupial native to North America north of Mexico. That alone makes them remarkable. They’re more closely related to kangaroos and wallabies than to any placental mammal, and they’ve been doing their thing on this continent for roughly 65 million years, which means they survived whatever finished off the non-avian dinosaurs. They’re genuinely ancient animals, and the whole “playing dead” strategy predates most of their current predators by a wide margin.

The playing dead behavior, called thanatosis, is involuntary. The opossum doesn’t decide to do it — it’s an autonomic response to extreme stress, similar to fainting. The animal goes limp, its breathing slows, it drools, and it emits a foul-smelling secretion from its anal glands to reinforce the impression of a rotting corpse. Some predators lose interest; the opossum eventually recovers when the threat passes.

We’ve written more fully about opossum behavior and why their aggressive reputation is wrong. The hissing and drooling that looks threatening is almost always defensive performance rather than genuine aggression.

The Australian Possums: A Different Animal Entirely

For completeness: Australian possums are genuinely different. There are more than 60 species in Australia, New Zealand, and nearby regions, ranging from the common brushtail possum to the tiny pygmy possum. They’re adapted to arboreal life, eat mostly vegetation and nectar, and tend to look considerably more appealing to most people than the Virginia opossum, which may be part of why the informal “possum” name became attached to the American animal, since early European settlers were trying to describe something familiar.

The naming confusion runs in both directions. In Australia, people casually refer to their possums using that name without any confusion, because they don’t have opossums. In North America, people casually drop the “o” without issue because they don’t have the Australian possums. The overlap exists only when someone is trying to be precise across both contexts.

The Wildlife Perspective on This Animal

Whatever you call it, the Virginia opossum is useful to have around. We’ve written about all the reasons opossums are good to have in a yard, their role as scavengers, their tick-foraging behavior, their notably low rabies risk relative to other wildlife. They fill a genuine ecological niche as generalist omnivores and decomposer-adjacent scavengers, and their low body temperature makes them significantly less dangerous from a disease transmission standpoint than raccoons, skunks, or foxes.

Their reputation suffers mostly because they look alarming to people who startle them, and because the defensive behavior (hissing, teeth-baring, drooling) reads as aggression even when it’s the opposite. What to do when you see an opossum is genuinely simple: leave it alone, give it time, and it will move on.

If you find one apparently dead in the yard, give it 30 minutes before drawing conclusions. Thanatosis can last anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. The animal that looks dead at 8 p.m. may be gone without a trace by midnight.

FAQ

Is it incorrect to say “possum” in North America? In casual conversation, no — it’s widely understood and used, especially in the South. In formal, scientific, or wildlife management contexts, “opossum” is the appropriate term. Merriam-Webster accepts “possum” as an informal variant.

Are possums and opossums the same animal? No. Opossums are marsupials of the order Didelphimorphia, native to the Americas. Possums are marsupials of the order Diprotodontia, native to Australia, New Zealand, and nearby regions. They share a marsupial ancestry but are not closely related.

Is “playing possum” named after the right animal? The phrase is named after the North American Virginia opossum, even though it uses the informal “possum” name. The behavior it describes — feigning death — is accurately attributed to the opossum and is well-documented.

The post Possum vs. Opossum: Both Are Correct, But Not for the Same Animal appeared first on Give A Shit About Nature.

That’s the whole show: a maximum-effort display designed to make a predator decide the situation isn’t worth the trouble. If you give it a minute and some space, it will either shuffle away on its own or fall completely still and let you assume you’ve won.

Opossums are among the least aggressive wild mammals that commonly share space with humans. That’s not opinion. Their default response to threat is avoidance, bluffing display, or full thanatosis, the involuntary catatonic state where they collapse, become unresponsive, and emit a foul odor to simulate a rotting corpse. An animal whose primary defense is pretending to be dead is not an animal with aggressive intentions.

What the Hissing and Drooling Actually Mean

When an opossum hisses, bares its teeth, and drools, it’s running through a defensive checklist in the hopes that something in the sequence convinces you to leave. It’s a performance, and a fairly committed one. The drooling isn’t a sign of rabies, it’s part of the thanatosis response and a normal behavior for a frightened opossum.

This matters because the visible signs people associate with rabies in wild animals — disorientation, drooling, unusual behavior — are also exactly what an opossum does when it’s scared but healthy. The two things look similar from a distance, and the misidentification has contributed significantly to opossums’ bad reputation.

Bites are rare and nearly always the result of physical handling, trapping improperly, or cornering the animal with no exit. An opossum that bites is an animal that has exhausted every other option. The appropriate response to an opossum in your yard is to give it space and let it move on, which it will do on its own timeline.

Keep Reading: Possum vs. Opossum: Both Are Correct, But Not for the Same Animal

The Rabies Situation Is Genuinely Reassuring

Opossums are marsupials with a body temperature between 94 and 97 degrees Fahrenheit — lower than most placental mammals. The rabies virus struggles to survive and replicate at that temperature, which is why confirmed rabies cases in opossums are exceptionally rare. Less than 1% of tested opossums in the U.S. come back positive. For comparison, raccoons, bats, skunks, and foxes are all significantly higher-risk rabies vectors.

This doesn’t mean you should handle opossums freely. They can carry leptospirosis and other pathogens, and direct contact with any wild animal warrants handwashing and basic hygiene. But the rabies fear specifically is disproportionate to the actual risk, and it’s worth knowing that.

If you see an opossum showing signs beyond normal defensive behavior — unprovoked aggression, genuine paralysis, sustained disorientation with no apparent trigger — contact animal control. Those would be signs of illness in any mammal, opossum or not. But hissing and drooling in response to your presence is just an opossum being an opossum.

What Opossums Are Actually Doing in Your Yard

Mostly scavenging. Opossums are opportunistic omnivores with an impressive appetite for things that would otherwise accumulate: fallen fruit, carrion, insects, and according to some research, ticks. They’re also one of the few animals with some resistance to certain snake venoms, though the ecological significance of this varies.

They’re not territorial in any meaningful sense, they don’t den permanently in one spot, and they move on relatively quickly. An opossum visiting your yard tonight may never return. They have large home ranges and move through rather than settle in.

The things that attract them — accessible garbage, pet food left outside, fallen fruit — are the same things that attract raccoons and skunks. Securing food sources is the effective way to reduce visits from all of them, opossums included. Unlike raccoons, though, opossums aren’t going to open a latch or figure out a bungee cord. The bar for deterrence is lower.

Pets and Opossums

A dog that encounters an opossum in the yard may trigger a defensive response — hissing, teeth, the full display. An opossum isn’t going to initiate a confrontation with a dog, but it won’t retreat if the dog is in its face. They’re generally not a threat to adult dogs or cats, though a cornered opossum can bite, and a bite from any wild animal warrants veterinary attention.

Keeping dogs on leash or supervised in the yard at night in areas with active wildlife is good practice generally — it protects both your dog and the wildlife. An opossum that survives the encounter is still useful to the ecosystem. One that doesn’t is a loss that wasn’t necessary.

If you’re doing other things to support backyard wildlife — native plantings, leaving leaf litter in place, putting up a brush pile — opossums may visit more regularly. That’s generally a sign of a functioning habitat, not a problem to solve.

FAQ

Will an opossum attack me if I get too close? Almost certainly not. Their response to close human proximity is to display defensively (hissing, showing teeth) or play dead. Bites are rare and nearly always the result of the animal being handled or physically cornered.

Is a drooling opossum sick? Not necessarily. Drooling is part of the thanatosis response — the playing dead behavior opossums use when severely frightened. It can look like a symptom of illness but is often just a scared animal running through its defensive repertoire.

Do opossums carry rabies? Confirmed rabies in opossums is exceptionally rare due to their low body temperature, which makes it difficult for the virus to replicate. They’re considered one of the lowest rabies risk species among common backyard wildlife.

How do I get an opossum to leave my yard? Give it space and time — it will usually move on within a few hours. Remove food attractants (pet food, unsecured garbage, fallen fruit) to discourage repeat visits. Opossums don’t establish permanent dens in residential areas the way other wildlife sometimes does.

What should I do if I find one playing dead? Leave it alone. Thanatosis can last from a few minutes to several hours. The opossum will recover and move on when it feels safe. Touching or moving it prolongs the stress response.

The post The Truth About Opossum Aggression (And Why Their Reputation Is Wrong) appeared first on Give A Shit About Nature.

And yet, the opossum is almost certainly not going to hurt you, is extremely unlikely to have rabies, and is quietly doing pest control work in your yard that you’re not paying for and probably don’t notice. The gap between how threatening they seem and how threatening they actually are is remarkable, even by wildlife standards.

If you’ve just seen one and are wondering what to do, the answer in most cases is: leave it alone and go back inside. But it’s worth understanding why — because once you do, you’ll probably find yourself glad it showed up.

Why Opossums Look So Alarming (And Why That’s the Point)

When an opossum feels threatened, it runs through a defensive sequence that seems designed to be as upsetting as possible. First it hisses. Then it drools and sways. If that doesn’t work, it collapses completely — mouth open, tongue lolling out, sometimes emitting a smell like rotting flesh — and stays that way anywhere from 40 minutes to four hours.

This isn’t a trick the opossum chooses to perform. It’s an involuntary physiological response called thanatosis, essentially a stress-triggered catatonic state. The opossum isn’t deciding to play dead; its nervous system is doing it automatically. The animal is genuinely unaware of what’s happening until it comes out of it.

The behavior works because most predators aren’t interested in carrion. A fox or coyote that encounters what looks and smells like a decomposing animal will usually move on. It’s a strange strategy, but it’s been working for opossums for a very long time — they’re one of the oldest mammal lineages in North America, and they’ve outlasted a lot of animals with more obvious survival advantages.

The hissing and drooling that people often interpret as signs of rabies are just the early stages of this same defensive response. Opossums are remarkably resistant to rabies — their body temperature runs too low for the virus to replicate efficiently. Seeing a drooling, swaying opossum almost certainly means you’ve startled it, not that it’s sick.

Keep Reading: Possum vs. Opossum: Both Are Correct, But Not for the Same Animal

What an Opossum Is Actually Doing in Your Yard

Probably eating something you’d rather not have around. Opossums are opportunistic omnivores — they eat insects, snails, slugs, overripe fruit, carrion, and occasionally rats and mice. They’re scavengers by nature, which means they’re actively cleaning up organic material that would otherwise rot, attract flies, or spread bacteria. They don’t dig up gardens. They don’t chew through walls. They’re not territorial and they don’t stick around once the food source is gone.

They also eat venomous snakes, which seems worth mentioning. Opossums have significant resistance to pit viper venom — proteins in their blood neutralize toxins from copperheads, rattlesnakes, and water moccasins — and they actively hunt and consume these snakes as part of their regular diet.

Scientists have identified the specific peptide responsible and are studying whether it could form the basis of a universal antivenom. The opossum is, quietly, a subject of serious medical research.

The tick question is worth addressing carefully, because it’s been widely overclaimed. A 2009 study found that opossums were highly effective at grooming ticks off themselves, leading to estimates of 5,000 ticks killed per season. That figure spread widely.

A 2021 study looked more carefully at stomach contents and diet records across two dozen other research papers and found no ticks in any of them, suggesting opossums may not actually eat ticks in meaningful numbers in natural conditions. The tick benefit is real but contested, and probably shouldn’t be the headline reason to appreciate opossums. The other reasons are strong enough on their own.

What to Do If You Find One in Your Yard

If it’s moving around and looks healthy: Nothing. Watch it if you want — they’re genuinely interesting to observe — and let it continue on its way. Opossums are transient animals and won’t set up permanent residence unless there’s a reliable food source keeping them there. They’ll move on.

If it’s lying still: Wait before assuming the worst. A motionless opossum may simply be in its involuntary catatonic state. Give it an hour or two with no disturbance, including keeping pets and children inside. In most cases it will recover and leave on its own. If it’s still completely unresponsive after several hours, or if it’s visibly injured, contact a local wildlife rehabilitator — not animal control, which in many areas will euthanize an opossum rather than treat it.

If it’s in your garage, basement, or shed: Open a door or window and give it a clear exit path. Don’t chase or corner it — that’s when you’ll get the full defensive display, and cornered animals can bite if pressed. Turn off lights and leave quietly. Check back in a few hours; it’s almost certainly gone.

If it’s a small, apparently orphaned opossum: Size matters here. Opossums less than seven inches long from nose to rump genuinely need help — contact a wildlife rehabilitator. Larger juvenile opossums may simply be young adults on their first independent nights out. They look small and helpless but are usually fine.

One Thing Worth Actually Doing

If you want opossums around — and after reading this, you might — the most useful thing you can do is stop using chemical pesticides and rodenticides in your yard. Rat poison travels through the food chain and affects scavengers and predators like opossums, owls, and foxes. An opossum that eats a poisoned rodent absorbs that poison. The same goes for broad-spectrum pesticides — opossums eat the insects you’re trying to kill, and if those insects are carrying toxic doses, the opossum pays for it.

Beyond that, leaving leaf litter and some natural debris in your yard gives opossums cover and foraging material. They’re ground-level animals that need sheltered spots to rest during the day. A brush pile is ideal habitat. You’re likely building it for rabbits and birds anyway, and opossums will use it too.

Securing garbage and not leaving pet food outside is the main way to avoid actually attracting opossums into spaces you’d rather they stay out of. If they’re getting into your trash, that’s the fix — not removal.

Opossums are good to have around

The opossum’s reputation is a good example of how much appearance shapes our feelings about wildlife. Raccoons are equally capable of getting into garbage and spreading disease, but they’re rounder and have a more appealing face and have been largely forgiven for their habits. The opossum looks like something assembled from spare parts, and people have never quite warmed to it.

Which is their loss, honestly. Opossums are good to have around in the same way that spiders are worth tolerating indoors — they’re doing useful work that mostly goes unnoticed, and the threat they pose is far smaller than the discomfort they cause. North America’s only marsupial has been here longer than most animals on this continent. It has survived ice ages, predator extinctions, and suburbanization. The least we can do is not call animal control because it’s eating slugs in our garden at midnight.

If it’s playing dead in your driveway: wait. If it’s in your yard: leave it. If it’s in your house: open a door. That really is most of what you need to know.

Read More: The Truth About Opossum Aggression (And Why Their Reputation Is Wrong)

Opossum Frequently Asked Questions

Is it safe to be near an opossum? Yes, for adults, with ordinary common sense. Don’t try to touch, corner, or feed it. An opossum that feels trapped may bite in self-defense, but unprovoked attacks on humans are essentially unheard of. Give it space and it will almost always disengage or leave.

Do opossums carry rabies? Rarely, if ever, in practice. Their low body temperature makes it very difficult for the rabies virus to survive in their system. The drooling and hissing behavior that people associate with rabies is a defensive display, not a symptom. Opossums are significantly less likely to carry rabies than raccoons, bats, or even feral dogs.

Should I call animal control if I see an opossum? Only if the animal appears genuinely injured — visibly bleeding, unable to move at all for several hours, or missing a limb. A healthy opossum that’s simply exploring your yard doesn’t need intervention. In many areas, animal control will euthanize rather than relocate opossums, so for injured animals a wildlife rehabilitator is the better call.

What attracts opossums to a yard? Primarily food: unsecured garbage, outdoor pet food, fallen fruit, and garden pests. Removing those attractants is the most effective way to reduce opossum visits if you’d rather not have them close to the house.

How long do opossums live? Not long — typically one to two years in the wild. They face significant pressure from predators, cars, and harsh winters. Their short lifespan is one reason they reproduce quickly; a female can have two litters per year.

The post What To Do If You See An Opossum (And Why You Should Support Them) appeared first on Give A Shit About Nature.

But the Virginia opossum, which is North America’s only marsupial, is one of the most genuinely useful animals you can have in your yard. Once you understand what it’s actually doing out there, the reaction most people have tends to shift from “get rid of it” to “please stay.”

What opossums actually eat

Opossums are opportunistic omnivores, which is a polite way of saying they will eat almost anything. Their diet includes insects, slugs, snails, grubs, mice, rats, carrion, fallen fruit, overripe vegetables, and whatever got left in your compost pile. In practical terms, this makes them one of the more efficient free pest control services available.

They eat cockroaches. They eat the snails eating your garden. They eat small rodents. They clean up dead animals that would otherwise attract flies and bacteria. An opossum moving through your yard at night is essentially running a sanitation route, and it’s doing it for free.

They also eat snakes, including venomous ones. Opossums have a natural immunity to the venom of many pit vipers, including copperheads and rattlesnakes, and they will actively hunt and eat them. If you live in an area where venomous snakes are a concern, this is not a small thing.

Keep Reading: Possum vs. Opossum: Both Are Correct, But Not for the Same Animal

The tick situation: what’s true and what’s overstated

You’ve probably seen the claim that a single opossum eats 5,000 ticks per season. It circulated widely on social media and got picked up by many reputable wildlife organizations. The underlying research is real, but worth understanding accurately.

The 5,000 figure comes from a 2009 study in which researchers placed ticks on captive opossums and counted how many were consumed. Opossums are meticulous groomers and removed roughly 90 to 96% of the ticks attached to them, which extrapolated to a seasonal estimate of around 5,000 per animal.

A 2021 review in the journal Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases complicated this picture. Researchers analyzed the stomach contents of 32 wild Virginia opossums from Illinois and found limited evidence of tick consumption, leading some scientists to question whether captive grooming behavior translates directly to wild feeding rates.

The honest summary: opossums are genuinely good groomers that consume the ticks they encounter on their bodies, and this almost certainly reduces local tick populations to some degree. Exactly how much remains debated. The 5,000 figure is probably generous. If you’re looking to reduce tick pressure in your yard, an opossum is a helpful ally, and its contribution combines with everything else a healthy yard does to support animals that eat ticks.

The rabies question

One of the most common reasons people are afraid of opossums is the assumption that they carry rabies. This fear is understandable but largely unfounded.

Opossums have an unusually low body temperature, running around 94 to 97 degrees Fahrenheit compared to the 98 to 102 degrees typical of most mammals. The rabies virus does not replicate efficiently at lower body temperatures, which is why opossums rarely contract it. The CDC reports that the animals most commonly infected with rabies in the U.S. are raccoons, skunks, bats, and foxes. Documented cases of rabies in opossums are extraordinarily rare.

That said, opossums can carry other diseases, including leptospirosis and salmonella, and their droppings can contain parasites. The standard guidance applies: don’t handle wild opossums with bare hands, wash thoroughly if you’ve been in contact with them, and keep children and pets away from their feces. But the fear of rabies specifically is not well supported by the evidence.

Playing possum

When an opossum feels cornered and can’t escape, it falls over, goes limp, and releases a foul-smelling secretion from its anal glands that smells like rotting flesh. Its eyes glaze. Its tongue hangs out. It will stay this way for anywhere from a few minutes to several hours.

This behavior, called thanatosis, is involuntary. The opossum isn’t making a clever decision to fake death. It’s undergoing a catatonic response that it cannot consciously control. Predators that rely on killing prey themselves often aren’t interested in something that appears to already be dead, so the strategy works. When the threat passes, the opossum recovers and moves on.

If you find an opossum in this state, leave it alone. It will come around. The worst thing you can do is try to move or handle it, which adds stress to an animal already in a defensive shutdown.

What to do if an opossum is in your yard

In most cases, do nothing. Opossums are transient. They don’t establish territories the way raccoons or foxes do. They wander a large home range and rarely stay in the same spot for more than a few nights. The opossum you see tonight may not come back for weeks.

If one has found a food source, like a pet food bowl left outside, an unsecured garbage can, or accessible compost, removing that food source is usually enough to move it along. Opossums are not aggressive toward humans and will typically retreat when approached. The hissing and open-mouth display looks alarming but is a bluff. An opossum that cannot flee will hiss. An opossum that has room to leave will leave.

If an opossum has gotten into a crawl space or garage, leave a light on and an exit available. They prefer dark, undisturbed spaces, and most will leave on their own once disturbed.

If you find an injured opossum, contact a wildlife rehabilitator. You can find your nearest one through the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association directory. Don’t attempt to handle an injured opossum without protection, not because of disease risk, but because even a scared opossum has a lot of teeth.

How to make your yard more welcoming

If you’d rather encourage opossums to stick around, the approach is similar to supporting most backyard wildlife. Native plantings support the insect and small animal populations they eat. Brush piles and log piles give them shelter and hunting grounds. Leaf litter left in garden beds, the same practice that supports fireflies and countless other beneficial species, provides habitat for the grubs and invertebrates opossums eat.

Eliminating pesticide use is probably the single most important step. Broad-spectrum pesticides reduce the insect and invertebrate populations that opossums, birds, and most other wildlife depend on for food. A yard that uses no pesticides supports the kind of layered food web that lets opossums, and everything else, thrive naturally. This is the same principle behind rewilding your yard, which makes space for the full range of native species, including the ones that aren’t conventionally beautiful.

Water access matters too. A shallow dish with rocks to prevent drowning, a birdbath, or a small pond serves opossums as well as the birds, bees, and other wildlife you’re trying to support.

A few genuinely interesting facts

The Virginia opossum is the only marsupial native to North America. This means it’s more closely related to kangaroos and wombats than to raccoons or rats, despite how it looks.

Opossums have 50 teeth, more than any other North American land mammal. They also have a prehensile tail, which can grip branches, and opposable thumbs on their hind feet, making them surprisingly capable climbers.

Their gestation period is just 12 to 13 days, one of the shortest of any mammal. Newborns are roughly the size of a honeybee and immediately crawl into the mother’s pouch to continue developing. A litter can include up to 20 joeys, though typically only 6 to 9 survive.

Opossums have short lifespans, usually two to four years in the wild, which means the animal in your yard right now is probably not much older than a year.

The bottom line

The opossum in your yard is not a threat. It’s not going to attack you, it’s almost certainly not rabid, and it’s actively eating things you don’t want around. It’s cleaning up, patrolling for snails and rodents and ticks, and it will be gone in a few days.

The instinct most people have to remove them is understandable, but the case for leaving them alone, or even actively supporting them, is genuinely strong. For anyone already thinking about how to attract wildlife to their yard, the opossum is one of the easier wins available: it shows up on its own, asks for almost nothing, and earns its keep.

Frequently asked questions

Are opossums dangerous to dogs or cats? Opossums are not aggressive animals and will almost always retreat rather than fight. They are capable of biting if cornered or handled, but unprovoked attacks on pets are rare. A healthy opossum encountering a dog will typically hiss, then flee or play dead. The main risk to pets is the same as with any wildlife contact: the possibility of fleas, parasites, or bacterial transmission. Keep pet food indoors and supervise pets at night in areas with regular opossum activity.

Should I feed opossums? Wildlife rehabilitators generally advise against deliberately feeding wild opossums. Regular feeding encourages dependency, draws them to high-traffic areas where they’re more likely to be hit by cars, and can cause nutritional problems if the food isn’t appropriate. If an opossum is accessing your yard naturally and eating insects, grubs, and fallen fruit, that’s a different situation: it’s foraging, not being fed, and no intervention is needed. The same reasoning applies to feeding wild ducks and most other wildlife.

What does it mean if an opossum is out during the day? Opossums are primarily nocturnal, but daytime activity doesn’t automatically signal illness. A nursing mother may forage at unusual hours due to nutritional demands. Young opossums recently on their own may appear disoriented while learning their territory. If a daytime opossum appears obviously injured, is walking in circles, is unable to stand, or is unresponsive to your presence, contact a wildlife rehabilitator. A healthy opossum spotted during the day, even if moving slowly, is usually fine.

Do opossums dig up yards? Rarely. Unlike skunks or armadillos, opossums don’t dig. They will root through leaf litter and compost searching for insects and invertebrates, but they’re not making holes. If you’re finding dug-up areas in your yard, the culprit is probably something else. On the flip side, because they don’t burrow, they’re less disruptive to garden beds and lawns than many other visitors.

Is it legal to relocate or trap opossums? This varies by state. In many states, opossums are classified as non-game animals and trapping or relocating them requires a permit. Relocating wild animals is also generally not recommended by wildlife agencies, as animals released in unfamiliar territory often don’t survive. If an opossum is genuinely causing a problem, contact your local animal control office or a licensed wildlife removal professional rather than attempting to trap it yourself. In most cases, removing the food source is a more effective and legal solution.

The post Are Opossums Good to Have Around? Yes: Here’s Why appeared first on Give A Shit About Nature.