You could say that the mother possum serves as a roadster, 

 since she has a rumble seat too, even if this is underneath in 

 the form of a pouch. Once when I surprised a possum family 

 traveling as a group, the mouse-sized youngsters pulled a magic 

 disappearing act. There was a brief, lively scene as they scram- 

 bled about the mother's sides, then she appeared alone her 

 offspring had taken cover in her pouch. 



Nearly everything else about the animal is equally astonish- 

 ing. It produces broods of up to eighteen in only twelve and a 

 half days. The babies are so tiny at birth that an entire litter 

 can be contained in a tablespoon. 



Blind, with only the front feet fairly well developed, the mites 

 crawl into their mother's pouch to begin nursing. 



As there are at most thirteen nipples and a baby usually 

 remains fixed to the first one it comes to for five or six weeks, 

 casualties occur. In fact, after a month the pouch may contain 

 only seven or eight young. But the survivors are well cared for. 

 Two or three litters are raised in a year. 



Possums spend a lot of time in trees and often make their 

 dens in hollow trunks. For the fancy footwork of the treetops, 

 nature has given the animal hind feet that resemble human 

 hands. The big toe can be opposed to the other toes which have 

 claws for climbing the way a person's thumb opposes his fingers. 

 But the big toe has a nail. Tracks look like a child's hand prints. 



A long, scaly tail, which the possum can wrap around a branch, 

 serves as an aerial emergency brake. In fact, the creature can do 

 just about anything with its tail that a monkey can, many feats 

 being attributed to this appendage. 



I doubt, though, that a possum ever sleeps while dangling 

 by its tail, as folklore has it. Or that a female ever carries her 

 young suspended over her back, their tails gripping her tail. 



A farmer once warned me never to pick up a live possum by 

 the tail. Said it would squeeze my hand in two. I'm sure he 

 believed this. 



Possums are night gadabouts and will eat just about anything 

 from bats to blueberries. Because they forage at night and are 

 of a retiring nature, few people realize that the animals are to 



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