Possums are omnivorous animals that eat various insects, plants, and grains. Their dietary habits vary depending on location and season.

They are adapted to live in the trees with strong claws and hand-like back feet. They also have long prehensile tails that help them grip tree branches.

They are not rodents.

Possums look like rodents with their pointed snouts and long tails, but they’re a type of marsupial. They are the giant marsupials in North America and have opposable thumbs, prehensile tails, and fur-lined pouches to carry their young.

They are omnivorous, consuming various foods, including insects, eggs, fruits, nuts, and other plant matter. They also eat road kills and fresh meat.

They are non-aggressive animals and usually avoid people. However, if they feel threatened, they snarl, hiss, and even show their teeth to scare away predators.

They are unlikely carriers of rabies.

Rabies is a disease that spreads when an infected animal bites someone or its saliva enters an open wound, such as a scrape or bite. It is most commonly a question that do possums have rabies.

Fortunately, it’s also scarce to find an opossum infected with rabies. This is because possums have a low body temperature, making it very difficult for the virus to survive inside their bodies.

Small rodents (such as squirrels, hamsters, guinea pigs, gerbils, chipmunks, rats, and mice) and lagomorphs (such as rabbits and hares) are rarely found to be infected with rabies. However, bats are the most common wildlife species associated with human rabies cases in the United States.

They are smart

Despite their undeserved reputation for being stupid rats-like creatures, possums are more innovative than dogs and almost as intelligent as pigs. For example, they can remember where food is hidden and move quickly through mazes and other complex environments better than other animals, such as rabbits and cats.

Opossums are also incredibly smart in self-defense, using their teeth to hiss, chomp, and snap when threatened by predators. They even release a foul-smelling substance from their anal glands when they’re in this defensive posture, which has been proven to deter predators and help them avoid harm.

They are opportunistic eaters.

Possums are omnivores; as such, they eat anything they can find in nature. This includes insects, birds, animal eggs, small mammals, frogs, snails, and worms.

They are also scavengers, cleaning up dead animals and leaving food scraps around for other critters to eat. This is one reason they are attracted to garbage cans and bird feeders at night.

They are a natural tick repellent, eating up to 5,000 ticks a season. This makes them an effective way to reduce tick numbers and the spread of diseases such as Lyme disease.

They are a marsupial.

Marsupials are a particular group of mammals that includes kangaroos, koalas, and wombats. All these creatures have a pouch their young lives in after birth, providing them with the warmth and shelter they need to complete their development.

They also have a lot of teeth, more than other land mammals on this continent. They are classified in the Didelphimorphia, an order of omnivorous marsupials that range from small to medium-sized mammals.