#possum facts

[sasspossrilla]

Something that’s often portrayed wrong about possums is their feet. People assume their feet must work like rats because they kinda look similar, but nope! Possums are plantigrade (walking on the soles of the feet), and their hind feet just look like hands (including thumbs!!). Their front hands are like a rats though. Humanlike hands with another pinky where the thumb would be

A lot of the time they’re given ratlike hind feet, with a long foot with toes at the end. But they’re just hands really. You can see examples of the ratlike feet in these very inaccurate possums from Bambi, with a rats hind foot for reference

Possums also aren’t digitigrade like this one from Adventure Time. If you look at their skeleton you can see they have forward pointing knees like we do and don’t have digitigrade legs like a dog has. They walk with their feet planted on the ground firmly

[brettdoesdiscourse]

Okay, so! A little PSA. If you see an opossum that has crossed eyes with a lot of white in them, similar to the pictures you see below

Please do NOT call it cute, adorable, etc. Please do NOT show support or love for owners/handlers who call their opossum cute or celebrate this look.

The bulging of the eyes is actually caused by a fat buildup behind/around them that is caused by overfeeding or poor diet. The animal you see here is likely extremely unhealthy as a result of being taken care of incorrectly, to the point where there are visible symptoms of something being wrong with her. Being overweight and fed an improper diet is also one of the main reasons opossums can often die early in captivity.

Note this condition is NOT painful for the opossum, but it is an indicator that they have not been cared for correctly.

[ihavepointysticks]

How could you not love that face?

@cordellwinchesterwalker

[outofccontext]

source: Letterkenny. S1E5: "Rave"

[uncharismatic-fauna]

Uncharismatic Fact of the Day

Not all marsupials have a pouch for their young! Meet Gardner's short-tailed possum; a member of the marsupial family that looks more like a mouse than a possum. This species was only formally recognized in 2013, and was characterized as a member of the Didelphidae family due to its separated hind toes, which are characteristic of possums. However, Monodelphis gardneri lacks a reproductive pouch, and it is likely that its young are much more developed at birth than other marsipual joeys.

(Image: A Gardener's short-tailed possum (Monodelphis gardneri) by Fabrice Schmitt)

Want to request some art or uncharismatic facts? Just send me proof of donation of any amount to any of the fundraisers on this list, or a Palestinian organization of your choice!

[keferon]

i mean. Prowl needing to know what's going on doesn't disqualify him from being the pilot- it just means he gets to know the environment around him. Chuck transformer jazz at earth, featuring pilot Prowl, and problem solved.

Yeah it would work. But I want a space adventure so

[2022dirt]

A baby possum was found hitching a ride on this dog’s back.

[cardentist]

I'm like, 70% sure this is only an issue with the gravity falls fandom on twitter, but if I don't say something I think I'm gonna explode

there Doesn't Need to be a bad guy between fiddleford, emma-may, and ford ! we can recognize one character causing harm to another, both directly and indirectly, Without framing it like it's intentional or that it makes any of them inherently bad.

in particular, I think there's been pushback against people vilifying ford (both in general and as angst material for other characters) by just. shifting that blame over to another character instead and running with it.

so to get this out of my system:

Yes I agree that fiddleford and ford have a lot of queercoding between each other. I think it's always been there to an extent, but it's absolutely been reinforced with the book of bill and "thisisnotawebsite."

and even if you choose to read their relationship as platonic (which is fine ! a lot of people like to read ford as aroace, for instance), it's very clear that fiddleford's relationship with ford heavily put a strain on his relationship with his family and ultimately lead to his and emma-may's divorce.

and there's nothing wrong with exploring that! exploring how it hurt emma-may and tate, exploring how it's another facet of fiddleford ruining his own life without even thinking about it, exploring the complicated feelings that were happening in that cabin. and I don't even think there's anything wrong with joking about fiddleford being a cheater or ford and emma-may being rivals.

but it Really grinds my gears when people frame fiddleford as being inherently in the wrong for taking the job with ford, as if he was intentionally hurting his family or that he Genuinely went there to cheat.

1: one of the first things we're told about fiddleford in journal 3 is that he was raised dirt poor and wanted to climb the latter in the scientific community to give his family a better life than HE had.

and that's Exactly why he took the job in gravity falls ! it was someone he trusted as his good friend AND someone he trusted academically. the whole idea is that this was supposed to be a temporary job that would Both help a dear friend of his And open up opportunities for his future.

and like, this aspect of his character isn't insignificant. he is Very Much So an archetype of a poor person, and has been since his inception. it's part of what Makes him a match for ford, he's an intellectual match yes but he's also an Outcast that wants more out of life than what he has. this aspect isn't Malicious by any means, but it equally lead them to hurt people they cared about.

Yes he left emma-may and his young son, but it was Never supposed to be forever. he left FOR them, which is half of what makes what happened so tragic in the first place. in many ways, he hurt them Because he cared about them.

and Yes, I do love a queer reading of these characters (and I'll get to that), but it's Very clear in the source material that fiddleford Does care about his family. a big part of his falling out with ford in the first place was because Fiddleford thought they both needed to leave gravity falls to raise their own families, and it's something that fiddleford brings up earlier on in their stay together as well.

that doesn't excuse how he'd mistreat emma-may at all. she was absolutely in her right to divorce him (which I thought even before the book of bill dropped). but I feel like we're letting the subtext overtake the TEXT while examining these characters and their dynamic.

2: lets assume that fiddleford IS a closeted gay man (or bisexual, or that he and emma may are in a lavender relationship, or-), as I so often like to do.

while exploring the pain that could cause emma-may and tate is Very Interesting and fun, I think we're ignoring the systemic homophobia in the room.

fiddleford was born in the 1960s to a religious poor rural southern family, and emma-may and fiddleford's relationship happened in the 1980s.

I Do think fiddleford is definitely progressive for his time (and just overall a very chill dude), but his upbringing Also very clearly had an affect on him. if it's possible for a man who believes the world is a simulation to also believe in jesus then fiddleford's the one to have done it.

and this is implied directly in the text mind, whether fiddleford is still actively religious or not he gets on ford for doing things like taking the lord's name in vein. not something that someone who Wasn't affected by a religious upbringing would do.

there's also the textual (rather extreme) anxiety, and the Implied ocd (the hair pulling, the cubix cube, the moral fixation, etc).

with all that said !

YES it would be extremely painful for emma-may to be in love with a gay man who had a crush on someone else, whether fiddleford was aware of or even acted on those feelings or not.

but I do hope we can all understand why it's Not Great to frame fiddleford as being inherently in the wrong for this right? for either not realizing his feelings at all or deliberately repressing them in the wake of Probable religious trauma and Definite safety issues in the society he lived in? Yeah?

no we should not treat emma-may like she's "getting in the way" of our beautiful yaoi, but ignoring systemic homophobia to vilify a queer man being afraid of appearing as anything but straight in the 1980s is. um. Bad.

the thing that's Most interesting about this whole situation is that it's a tragedy through and through. you can't inherently blame Any of them for what happened, and trying to do so loses what actually makes the situation so complex and painful.

because fiddleford clearly DID care about them, ALL of them, very dearly. and he obviously wanted to do the right thing. and yet he hurt them all, and yet his entire life and mind fell apart to ash in his fingers.

it's Crazy, and it absolutely does a disservice to the situation to frame it as fiddleford just being a slutty lying cheater (or ford Ruining a perfectly good man by being abusive, or emma-may getting in the way of our old man yaoi).

except bill, we can vilify bill. I think he'd like that

[sasspossrilla]

I've been wondering about the tick thing being a myth. Is it just that possums don't eat that many ticks, or do they not eat ticks at all? Do we know how that myth got started?

Good question and the origin of the myth actually started with a scientific paper.

The original study that started the claim that possums eat 5k ticks a season took several animal species from the wild, put tick larvae on them, counted how many they ate, and used those numbers to get an estimate of how many they could theoretically eat in the wild. The results of that paper were widely publicized and quickly spread as a reason to like possums.

However, newer studies, like this one, studied wild possum stomachs and found NO ticks in them at all. They also looked at the literature about possums and ticks and found that possums can carry ticks and that other studies of possum diets don't support them eating many at all. If they do eat ticks from grooming, the amount is a negligible part of their diet and maybe like a couple they eat from grooming themselves. They also found that the original study was highly flawed. The study didn't count how many tick larvae fell off the possums and assumed any that weren't on them were eaten. And that they based the estimates off of 100 tick larvae per species tested. The tick test was also done on possums in captivity, and animals in captivity act differently than those in the wild so they should not have just made the estimate and ran with it.

If you'd like an easier to read version of the newer study, this paper does a good job summarizing it.

Personally, I hate seeing the tick fact being spread around because of the idea that animals need to be useful to humans somehow to be worthy of life. I see stuff online frequently that people learn the debunked tick fact and use that as a reason to like possums. Even people saying that them supposedly eating ticks is reason enough to not outright kill them. But why do they need to be useful to us just to be appreciated? Possums are wonderful creatures and they don't need to eat ticks or whatever to be an important part of the ecosystem and admired for their unique characteristics.

[sasspossrilla]

Fun fact: the fur pattern opossums of the didelphis genus have (like the Virginia opossum here) is because they have a white undercoat and gray guard (long outer) hairs

[motionpicturessoundtrack]

[doodle-girl]

POV you are a Pastra/Dreams of an Insomniac fan wandering the tumblr side of things for the first time in a while, you found out about the “Sitcom AU,” asked to know more, and someone just gave you the link to my post(s) and you find this guy in your notifications:

[kaboomthepossum]

Suddenly you are transported to a mystical realm and told you are the hero, destined to save it

You can choose one animal sidekick (or group of sidekicks if they are a group) from a TMG song

You must decide

The world depends on it

[sasspossrilla]

All species of opossum have opposable thumbs on their hind feet too (not on the front ones tho)!

They also make clicking noises to communicate to each other in the wild to find mates or call out to their joeys. The joeys make a sneeze sounding call back to the mother. But they will also growl at other animals if they feel threatened

All opossums in the didelphis genus (the biggest 6 species, with the Virginia opossum—one in US and Canada—being the largest of all) have white undercoats and gray outer hairs. That’s what’s responsible for their unique fur pattern

Didelphid opossums also are the ones that play dead involuntarily when stressed (the only mammals who do this!). And they’re immune to the venom of toads, rattlesnakes, pit vipers, and other snakes and will hunt them. They can take up to 70 bites from those snakes!!

Their prehensile tails are used to grab and carry nesting material back to their nests, and also help them balance while climbing. However you CANNOT pick up a grown possum by the tail! They can only hang by their tails when very young!!

free possum facts you say?

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

ok so

AHHH

possums can’t get rabies! well, *almost* exactly never. their body temperature is too low for rabies to live, so possums very very rarely have rabies.

possums have the most teeth out of any mammal in north america! dw tho, they also have the smallest brain-to-body ratio out of any mammal in NA, so you can’t worry about devilish sneaky possums getting you. also they generally just run or play dead when threatened.

something about them playing dead is that they actually don’t control it! they’re unconscious during and they also leak nasty smelling butt juices to make them smell dead so don’t touch

another funky fact is that they have thirteen (13!) nipples! the nipples are arranged in a circle with one in the middle. as they are marsupials, (the only in NA!) the nipples are in their handy pouch (if they are female).

possums have the shortest gestational period out of any mammal in north america too! only ~12 days long! since that isn’t very long for the babies to be in the cooker, they come out smaller than a jellybean :) which is adorable but unFORTUNETLY they are so small they need a whole nipple to themselves to survive, and there’s only 13 nipples, and possums can give birth to up to 25 childs…..

also possums in the wild only live 1-2 years

but they have adorable grippy little tails and adorable thumbs on all feet and cute fluffy faces so :))

last fact: they are good boys

[mjrtaurus]

Dragon: Friend to all living creatures

Also Dragon: *dumping a dish of ticks into the chicken coop and watching as they get pecked like corn kernels* SUFFER

Dragon contracted lyme disease on a hunting trip with his dad one season and has hated those little blood-sucking monsters ever since. He didn’t get the life-long issues, thankfully, but the experience was unpleasant.

He’s also extra nice to possums for their parasite/pest-eating ways. They’re adorably scruffy little animals. Very non-confrontational, too.

[possumdnp]

golden kiwi (rated T, 1.7k words)

Summary: "Phil turns the corner and spots it on display in a corner of the shop: a large golden kiwi statue. It’s quite possibly the most majestic object he’s ever seen."

(A fic set during Dan and Phil's day off in Auckland during the Terrible Influence Tour.)

Read on ao3 here!