To be completely fair to everyone, if you've never seen a opossum b4 they look kinda fugly. I grew up with them though so I know how much personality they can have, and I think they're kinda cute
We have lots 'round these parts and I got punked by one a few years ago. We had some feral cats who visited now 'n then that we'd occasionally feed and of course cat food = possum food so we'd get a juvenile possum on occasion. One evening looking for the cats in the pervasive bushy undergrowth, I find a dead opposum.
Dead opposum. Wow, what killed it? Ew, I'm not touching that!
Dead opposum.
Hello brain, you there? Are possums known for doing things? Hello???
Nope. 'Ew, dead possum' is brain's final conclusion. Meh I'll clean it up later...
Much later. Maybe an animal'll 'clean it up' for me.
Gross.
Dead possum in my backyard. Loser.
Go out later that night to look for more cats and no possum, no blood.
Huh that's weird.
No. You're just an idiot. It was playing possum and you're as easily fooled as all the predators of North America's only extant marsupial.
May all the opposum's natural predators go just a little hungrier as it continues to carry out its very successful strategy:
Quando omni flunkus moritati. When all else fails, play dead.
Words to live by.