Ologies with Alie Ward - Opossumology (O/POSSUMS) with Lisa Walsh

Episode Date: September 21, 2021

Teeth. Tails. Concentric nipples. This not-at-all-rodent has the distinction of being North America’s sole marsupial and so Alie hunted down lauded Opossumologist Dr. Lisa Walsh and launched an absolute torrent of giddy questions. How many ticks do they really eat, can we keep them as pets, how do we all convincingly feign death, opossum vs. possum, fingerprints, orphaned babies, the best possum jokes, the worst ones, venom immunity, bifurcated dongs, space portal vageens, being equally ugly and adorable, the rise of the memes, why we scream at our own asses, and more. Open a space in your heart for these critters. Follow Dr. Walsh at Twitter.com/spoutsoffacts , Donations went to: https://www.kidneyfund.org/ & https://opossumsocietyus.org/ More links and info at alieward.com/ologies/opossumology Sponsors of Ologies: alieward.com/ologies-sponsors Transcripts & bleeped episodes at: alieward.com/ologies-extras Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month: www.Patreon.com/ologies OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, pins, totes and now… MASKS. Hi. Yes. Follow twitter.com/ologies or instagram.com/ologies Follow twitter.com/AlieWard or instagram.com/AlieWard Sound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray Morris Transcripts by Emily White of www.thewordary.com/ Website by https://www.kellyrdwyer.com/Support the show: http://Patreon.com/ologies

Oh, it's the smell of a tent that you haven't used in two years, and it's got a little bit of mildew whiff, but it's comforting. Alleyboard, and back with an episode of oligies, I don't even want to intro. I don't want to even be talking right now. I just want you to hear the interview. I want you to hear all about the majesty of the world's most beloved rat-faced trash gobbling cuddle bugs who lug around skin sex full of infants. So here's the briefest of introductions, okay?

These oligies got their PhD studying members of the genus Dydelfis, most specifically the Virginia opossum. North America's only native marsupial, the only one in North America. They got their bachelor's in biology from Bowdoin College, a master's and a PhD from the University of Michigan. They're also studying STEM education and how college professors can make learning easier during a fricking pandemic. They're so passionate about psychom and education and opossums, or opossums.

We get into it. But first, we're going to thank everyone at patreon.com slash oligies for submitting such intensely perfect questions for this episode and for supporting the podcast since before we were even a podcast, thanks to everyone who leaves reviews and rates the show like this squirming, hairless pink review, just days old, left by Swinging Pro who wrote in, This podcast is just a bunch of dorks getting stupidly excited about learning and I love it so much. Oh, Swing Pro, you had me there for a sec, but you're one of us.

We love you back. If you left a review this week, I read it straight up. So thank you. And congrats to Brainy Blonde and Tiger2040 for your science student journeys. I read those. Okay, let's put some fuzzy munchkins in your hearts. Let's get into it. I heard of this oligist work this past Friday, I DM'd her the all caps message, will you

talk to me about possums? What is your schedule like? I'm excited, Dr. Walsh, shameless begging and a quick response. We chatted just this past Saturday morning all about this not at all rodent creature and their general vibe, dramatic death throws from tails to teeth to tiny hands and numbered nipples, orphaned babies, pet possibilities, the best possum jokes, the worst ones, rabies, kick vacuums, myths, flim flam, the rise of the memes, and more with nationally recognized mymologist, biology educator, environmental scientist, researcher and acclaimed opossimologist,

Dr. Lisa Walsh. Oh, let's do it. Dr. Walsh, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Yes. Oh my gosh. I'm so excited to talk about possums. You have no idea.

Maybe you do have an idea because you're a possum scientist, so everyone's excited to talk possums, but I'm very excited. That's great. I had dreams all night about this podcast that I had so many questions from listeners that I couldn't sort through them all, which is... Oh, wow. I had some dreams all night that fits with a nocturnal animal. I already love her.

Oh, first thing I'll have you do is if you could say your first and last name and your pronouns. Sure. I am Lisa Walsh, pronouns she, her, hers. Perfect. And okay, help me figure out what ology this is. Would it be didelmorphiology? No.

Possibly. I guess it depends on how scientific you want it to be and like how narrow do you want it to be because it could be like metapherology for all marsupials, didelmorphology, or this morning my husband suggested opossumology. And I think that that rolls off the tongue better than the more scientific names. You know, I did look around and I did see that more people were using posumology than didelmorphiology. So it might be that, but the first question is opossum versus possum, Lisa at the record

straight or so confused. I know. I don't know if Americans decided that using the O sounded hokey or, you know, back when there was more anti-Ira sentiment, they just didn't want, they didn't want to say opossum. But it comes from an American Indian Algonquin word, opossum, where it means white animal. And John Smith, being the colonizer that he was, just decided to steal the name and anglicize it. And this was actually the first marsupial that Europeans had encountered.

I've read that the Spanish actually came across an opossum with Christopher Columbus and they brought it back to Spain and they're like, oh my gosh, she's carrying her young in the pouch. And eventually the British stole the name from the American Indians and called it opossum. And then when another group of colonizer came across more marsupials in Australia, they said, well, these look very similar. They have similar traits. They also live in trees.

Let's call them by the same name. And at some point they decided we are going to confuse people. So let's call them possum instead of opossum, but I think that ended up confusing people more. Okay, that makes so much sense. And how did marsupials get to North America? They have a very long and confusing evolutionary history. They've been popping up all over.

That's because they've been around for over 200 million years. Wow, my gosh. Yeah. 200 million years. So this goes back to how well do you know your continents and the history of continents, so Pangaea to Laurasia and Gondwana. And I am not a paleontologist, so I'm not great at it, but I don't know if I should be admitting that.

But we actually think that they evolved and emerged first in land that was to become North America and Europe. And at some point, North America and South America were together. And the group that would survive made it to South America. The group, once the continent separated, that were in North America and Europe died out. And the South American group wandered through what's to become Antarctica, made it to Australasia, and really just exploded. They did great there.

The ones that were stuck in South America, they were okay. There's a few groups that are there. But then about two million years ago, the two American continents came back together and there was a land bridge. And so that's how they made it into North America. But it's funny, you read the history of this American interchange. They call it where a bunch of different groups of North American animals went South, South American animals went North, so Armadillo went North, Great Sloths went North.

And the possum was like, you know, I'm just going to wait, I'm going to wait, I'm going to wait. So we don't think they were one of the last animals to arrive in North America actually during that interchange. So they were just taking their sweet time, which, you know, I can appreciate. It's what they do, right? They're not very fast critters from what I understand. They're not.

But man, when they want to book it, they can. You do not expect them to move fast, so when they do, maybe it seems a lot faster than it is. I've seen a manatee book it, same thing. You're like, yeah, you're supposed to be slow. So when they move fast, it's still relative, but it's just so surprising. I needed footage of this and I needed it bad. So down the opossum hole, I merrily fell, watching videos of these ash-colored fuzz

loaves just loping about sports fields and trail cams. Look, what is that strange animal running across the lawn? Quiet's an opossum. And yes, they can scurry with the best of them, topping out at four miles an hour, which you think sounds slow, but that's a 15-minute mile and Michael Phelps can only swim six miles per hour. Manatees, when they want to get the fuck away from you, they can jet 20 miles an hour. That's more than three times faster than an Olympic gold medalist.

So next time you get on the freeway, you hit 20 MPH, just think of a manatee drag racing you and winning a giant underwater yam with a beaver tail, leaving you in the dust. They go like, oh my gosh, that was actually really fast. And now what about you and your evolution and migration? How did you come to be a very, in my mind, celebrated opossum researcher? I started my undergraduate career convinced I was going to be a marine biologist, and I was doing research on this single-celled organism, a dinoflagellate that lives symbiotically inside coral.

The problem is, they have not one but two cell walls, and so if you're trying to do anything in terms of genetics, just to get at the DNA, it took me about two months to figure out how to shear open their cell walls and get at their DNA, and I was just so frustrated sitting in the lab looking at the kaogen-dianese kit. That's what it's called. It's called DNEasy. I was like, this is anything but easy. I was reading the manual and they said, you know, you want this, this many grams if it's

a mousetail, you want this many grams if it's mouth blood, I guess it would be liters, this many milliliters if it's mouth blood, and I was just like, mice, mammals. Those sound so much easier to ask questions about. First of all, because you can see them. So the dinoflagellate, we didn't even know how they reproduced. I was like, I can make a bunch of guesses, but if you don't even know the natural history, you can't. I guess I couldn't ask the questions I wanted to at the time.

So I found a wonderful advisor at the University of Michigan, Priscilla Tucker. She works on mice. I was like, oh, mice, great. She said, well, what do you want to research? I said, well, I really want to just ask questions about, I guess in my mind, I was like, oh, beavers, they went through this huge population die off because we were hunting them too much. I guess trapping them too much. So her advisor, Dr. Tucker, said, you got to talk to this mnemologist, Phil Myers.

Oh, he's got all the steamy hot gauze on just a bunch of critters that are not microscopic. And he said, you know, the opossum is doing some weird stuff. It's just keeps trekking further and further north. And we don't know genetically what that range expansion north looks like. And so I said, OK, I will look at that for my masters, which translates into collecting a bunch of roadkill over an entire summer. I love this woman. Because I so I tried trapping opossums,

which is how I know how fast they are, because the only the only opossum I managed to trap just he was a little guy. He had probably just left mom and he just booked it as soon as he got out of the trap. He was like the fastest little opossum torpedo you've ever seen. And I mostly caught raccoons. And I was like, oh, my gosh, it's so funny to think of bycatch. Yeah, oh, it was mostly bycatch. I was terrified of catching a skunk.

I luckily never did. And I said, you know, I don't think I'm not going to get enough of a sample of opossums if if I'm just doing this. And I said, you know, you know, it's easy to get roadkill. So I drove around Ohio and Michigan all that summer, taking up roadkill. Did you pick up the whole meat pancake? Or did you just take a vial of what you needed? So there are people who do that and I have done that.

But I was mostly just looking for their ears. It's really nice, fleshy and it's easy to get as long as a scavenger hasn't run off with the skull and they've done that. They will take the entire head and so if there was no head, I would try dicking up other stuff. But luckily I was not taking the whole thing. My car would have been very fragrant if I had. Yeah.

Did you ever get stopped or questioned at all while you were snipping ears off of roadkill? That's a great question. I noticed this interesting dynamic, which I think I would do the same if I saw a strange woman parking her car and walking to this dead thing. Women would just stand inside their house and watch me. Like, OK, I'm going to monitor her, make sure she's not do anything on my property. But the men would stop behind me, thought their cars say, are you OK?

Can I can I get you anything? And I was like, I'm wearing a fluorescent vest with bright blue lab gloves. I'm good. And my favorite story is there was this man who had clearly just finished his work day at a garage, so he was full in a mechanic suit. And I think he was like, oh, my gosh, it is a woman in distress. I've been waiting for this. And he's like, can I help you?

And I was like, I and this possum was literally on the double yellow line. It was smack in the middle of the road. It was. Oh, God. It was a slow country road. And I was just like, I know he he offered to like carry it. And I was like, I'm trying to scrape it off the road so that I'm not sampling it in the road. I don't want to become double roadkill,

which was the really interesting thing driving around. So if you start looking for roadkill, you will find it. And there were a lot of double roadkills with possums because they actually, I mean, as scavengers, they will go eat the roadkill. So I found a possums with porcupines up in northern Michigan. And I found them multiple times with raccoons, which is really a who's eating who question. Yes, that was my next question is who.

Yeah, I mean, at least they they died doing what they loved. But yeah, who was who was scavenging who? That's a great question. That's like anyone out there needs to get a PhD in roadkill. Just an aside, I do have a future episode lined up about road ecology. And I will ask this very important question. Also, what did Dr. Walsh find from all the sampling?

Why are these sweet backyard beasts lumbering toward the northern territories? Well, she says, the first thing you do with population genetics is try to figure out how many populations are there and who belongs to which. And near the Western Great Lakes, there were two distinct opossum populations, a lower Michigan and Ohio Posse and a Wisconsin and upper Michigan one, which I'm sorry, upper Michigan. How are you not your own state? You're a disembodied landmass who skirted in as Michigan's plus one.

I'm always confused by you, but you're beautiful. Anyway, some interesting crossovers in these two groups. But why? And when I spoke to a fur trapper in, I believe he was in upper in the upper peninsula of Michigan, he said, you know, a little while ago, we had a really bad drought and we had to have hay bales brought in from elsewhere in Michigan. And opossums will occasionally den in, I guess, loose hay bales.

And he thought that they they got transferred from one part of Michigan to another because of this. So that's a good theory. If you search for it online, I believe there is a picture of an opossum stuck in a hay bale. I would let them sleep in my linen closet. I love them so much. They're so cute.

They're so wonderful. They would really like your linen closet. I feel like they would love it. And so they will sometimes hitch rides, perhaps. Yeah, sometimes hitch rides. What I what I looked at then was you can look at how diverse the populations are using the genetics collected. And I compared it to winter climate data across the region I had sampled.

And I also compared it to human density. So basically a measurement of how urban the area was and agricultural density. So how how much farmland, how many farms were around. Older, bigger populations will be more diverse. And what I found by proxy is that the older populations were where there was less days of snow on the ground. So it wasn't actually about temperature. It was about days of snow on the ground.

So if you didn't know, Noah has that data. I did not know that until I set out to ask this question. Just a side note. So Noah is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It is not some rando named Noah. Although curiosity never really fails to get the better of me. And yes, I did go on LinkedIn to type in Noah plus Noah in the search bar. And there are so many Noah's working at Noah.

And that pleases me. Anyway, possums don't like ground snow. Why such divas? Just like you or I, they wouldn't want to go walking outside in deep snow. Because essentially their their paws are like our feet. So we I'm sure there are some people out there who do that. But I would not want to walk barefoot on the snow. Their paws are so cute and pink and fleshy.

And actually, let's start with the pink adorable snoot. Yes. What? OK, they got a long snoot and one million teeth. Is that correct scientifically? They they do have 50 teeth. Yeah, so they have they have a lot of teeth. So some people say that they have the most teeth in the mammal kingdom. That is that is not true.

There there are others out there. I believe there's some armadillos aren't there with more teeth. I did I did the research a while ago and then I forgot it. She is correct. There are seventy four teeth in the mouth of the giant armadillo, the most of any mammal. But what about the animal with the most teeth on earth? A terrifying array exists of jagged, shredding mouth knives.

Numbering twenty five thousand. Who's got him? Who's got all those teeth snails? Just snails, which are commonly eaten by opossums. Acting as your garden bouncer. And yes, opossums have 50 teeth, which is still roughly 50 percent more than our 32. Yeah, they have a lot of teeth. The teeth allow them to eat whatever they want.

Opossums really need a lot of calcium. And so the teeth help them with breaking down little mice bones, bird bones, so that they can get all the calcium that they need. Why do they need so much calcium? Is it to make more teeth? It might be. I don't know if we know the why. I we do know what happens if they don't get enough calcium.

So it hasn't been scientifically reported for wild opossums. But for some orphaned opossums, if they're brought into this rehab center and they aren't fed a diet high enough in calcium, they develop metabolic bone disease, which is kind of like rickets for opossums. And and then they become non-releasable. There's a really cute story. It's cute and sad at the same time from a wildlife rehab center where there was an orphaned opossum and he loved grapes so much.

So as a generalist, they would they would be given basically a buffet to eat each day, but he would prioritize eating all the grapes and then he wouldn't be eating enough protein when he was when he was little. And so he did end up developing metabolic bone disease. So I just I think it's so funny that he loved grapes so much that he ate himself sick, but he was great. So he was deemed non-releasable and Steve, the opossum, became an education opossum. So that's I guess that's the that's the one silver lining.

If they do develop opossum rickets. Steve was the best freaking Steve. What kind of sense of smell do they have? What kind of eyesight do they have? Walk me through anatomy for anyone who has not gotten to be close to an opossum. Yeah, their eyesight is not good. It's probably a big reason why a lot of people who have encountered opossums, they say the opossum didn't really react to me or they have a story about their dog

running after the opossum and the opossum not being able to respond quick enough. So, yeah, I mean, I've I saw an old grizzled guy just walking through my parents' backyard a few summers ago and he just did not see me at all. But they have a really, really good sense of smell. Oh, that's helpful probably for finding roadkill and eggs and bones. Right? Yeah, they'll eat pretty much everything. I know that they've been lauded as I think of, as you've said, tick vacuums.

How many ticks do they really eat? There was a recent publication out where they looked at the stomach contents of wild opossums and they did not come across ticks. And so what that suggests is this older publication where they put larval ticks on captive opossums and saw how many had a full blood meal and fell off the opossum. They said, that's not necessarily the best way to determine how many ticks an opossum eats. So considering they eat everything and that the researchers with the captive opossums did find evidence of ticks in the feces, they do eat ticks.

They're not going out of their way to eat ticks. Like Steve went out of his way to eat grapes. At least right now, there's no evidence of that. But I mean, there's so many great questions remaining on opossums that I'm hoping there is a future grad student out there who's going to really figure out exactly what impact opossums will have on ticks and Lyme disease. So I think that's that's the next great research question with opossums.

I'm about to quit my life and just go back to school to study them. So who knows? Maybe me. Do other species of opossums have the cute, tiny, little round ears also? Yeah. So the Virginia opossum, the Delphi's Virginia is one of about six to eight Delphi's species, and they all look very similar. So much so that sometimes they get misidentified, especially in areas in Central America where they overlap.

Unfortunately, sometimes the only way to really determine that is if you have their skull. So if you see a live animal, it's going to be pretty hard to determine what species it is. X-ray vision. Yes, exactly. And do those little cute ears serve an evolutionary purpose? I think it would help with with hearing and it would help with thermoregulation. Most of their evolutionary history was in the neotropics.

And so the bigger ears would help them dissipate heat faster. So that's why like jackrabbits and in deserts, you're going to see those have huge ears. Right. So similar thing, but wet, warm environment instead of a hot, arid environment for the opossums in the neotropics. Yeah, that makes more sense. I think of them in colder climates. But yes, if they were in the neotropics and needed to cool off, that would make tons of sense.

Is that similar as to why they have a big pink naked rat tail? So they are arboreal, meaning they spend a lot of time in trees and they use that tail for balance. So you see a lot of pictures with them wrapping it around trees or branches. And, you know, you want something that's full of friction. If you're arboreal and if that limb is covered in hair, the hair is just going to slough off. There is actually hair on their tail. It's just very fine and hard to see unless you're right up on the tail.

Is it just like peach fuzz kind of or is it wiry? It's like wiry peach fuzz. That's hot. But it is more fine than the like beautiful hair that their body is covered in. And their little cute claws and hands and feet. Those are also bears so that they can scramble up trees. Yeah, I mean, same thing with with our hands and feet.

I mean, evolutionarily, for a while, we were in the trees as well. So same thing. We we want grip, so we want fingerprints that add to the grip. That that's kind of why you see, I guess, going back to the tail, why you see their tail is kind of scaly. It adds to the grip. I looked into this and opossums kind of have fingerprints. According to the 1969 scientific paper titled Studies in Dermatic Lifts by Dr.

Sardul Singh, opossums have friction ridges and dermal grooves. And they're not the only marsupials who do. So koalas fingerprints are similar enough to humans that the adages, it could stump Australian detectives, but you're going to have to wait until I do a ridgeology episode in the future, which is a thing. Also, I don't know how much beer Australian detectives drink, but either way, marsupials got a hand into them. And like us, opossums have an opposable toe.

Oh, yeah. So that's huge. Yeah, you look in terms of evolution, primates and opossums, trees. We love them, love them, got to do some scrambling. Yeah. And OK, let's talk the baby makers. The nipples in a ring. How many babies can they fit in that pouch?

Do they eat the babies? What's going on? Oh, do they eat the babies? I Tasmanian devils apparently eat a number of their own babies, just like gummy bears. And so I don't know. OK, yeah, opossums do that. Well, so that's, I guess, if we want to be really morbid, that is an evolutionary adaptation for marsupials where their gestation time is so short.

Thirteen days, 13 days in the hopper and they're out emerging pink and squirmy and the size of a bee after less than two weeks of gestation. I have had contact lenses in my body for longer. I've probably had mcnuggets in my body for longer, let's be honest. But mama possum gets knocked up and less than a fortnight later, she's like, hit the door, squirmy worms going to see you on the other side of my vagina. It actually fits within her estrus cycle. So basically your monthly cycle, it fits.

And so she gets pregnant and has those babies within the month or whatever her cycle is. And if it was not a good litter, good in terms of number, or if she is really stressed and is not going to be able to eat the nutrients she needs to survive and also nurse her young, we think she can just stop the milk supply. Say, OK, I want to do over, which would then be why she would eat her young. Basically, she can abort that litter and then start over. Reproductive choice happens in nature all the time. And the odds are not always ever in their favor.

Only one in 10 opossums actually survive to reproductive age, as things are pretty heated straight out of the gate and by gate, once again, I mean a vagina. And how many nipples do opossums have? Typically 13, but there have been reports from nine to 17. Oh, so many. Is there usually one in the middle like a target, like a bullseye? For opossums, it's like a horseshoe. So one's in the middle, but at the top.

But there are marsupials with pouches where it is like a circle of nipples and then one in the middle. I just loved the idea that that's kind of like a disco dance circle where one person's just really having a spotlight or that's like a seat of honor. Nursing in the middle. Yeah. How long are they nursing for? And are the nipples in the pouch?

The nipples are in the pouch for the Virginia opossum. They will nurse. They have to be attached to mom for 50 days. So it it is a bit like a royal rumble to get to a teat. Let's get ready to rumble. Because sometimes mom will have I've read up to 20, 22 joeys. But then she only has, let's say she's the average, she only has 13 teeth. So the first 13 that make it and attach and start nursing are the 13 that will

survive and they will stay attached for 50 days and be fully weaned around 100 days. And then it's back time. It's back time starting around 50 days. I think it's just an extension of her pouch. She's like, OK, come on, come on, guys, I'm mama bus. I have so many questions from listeners, literally hundreds. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I know, oligites don't fuck around.

I will not make you answer them all, but we have sorted them into some categories. Can I do a lightning round and we'll just see how many we can answer? Oh, yes. OK, before we do, we're going to blast some cash at worthy causes. Each episode we donate to a charity of the oligest choosing. And this week it's going to do actually the opossumsocietyus.org, which was formed by a group of concerned citizens interested in rescuing orphaned and injured opossums. They have a network of volunteers that rehabilitate opossums for return to

the environment. There's more info at opossumsocietyus.org. And then a second donation was made in Dr. Lisa Walsh's name in memory of her dear youngest aunt who passed away from polycystic kidney disease, which for more info on that, you can listen to the recent nephrology episode where we talk about it. So we made a donation to kidneyfund.org in her memory. And Lisa's aunt was herself a lover of opossums. She told me and she once saw an opossum

take a running jump onto a skunk, which is a magical thing to have witnessed. So those donations were made possible by sponsors of the show. OK, shout out to Patron and Wildlife Rehabber, Elizabeth A. Gantenbein and Australian Possum Volunteer Jess. And the first question was all about we little babies mentioned by a lot of patrons like Anna Guzman, who asked, what do I do if I happen to find a pinkie baby possum in my yard, as well as first time question askers Demi Espinoza and Laura Mitten and Wildlife Enthusiast Denay Dijone, as well as

first time question asker Claire Boudreau wants to know what should you do if you find a baby possum on its own? It's happened to them a few times and it was wonderful. But they're not sure, essentially, should we take it to an animal rehab center? Also, a ton of other people want to know, can you keep opossums as pets? OK, I will answer the first question. I guess it depends on how large the abandoned Joey is trying to think of the right animal size

for it. But basically, what about like an avocado, a cantaloupe? I think like if it's the size, if it's the length of like a banana. It it's it's good. It's on its own now. If it's the size of your hand. It's probably in need of being taken to a wildlife rehab center if it is. Yeah, about the size of an avocado. So if it is, if it doesn't have that long, lush hair that we're used to,

if its eyes are closed, it definitely it needs to be placed in some sort of little blanket and brought to the rehab center because it is probably not able to fully keep itself warm like a normal warm-blooded mammal yet. OK, so a banana or bigger, it's good to go. And one possum rescue site, use the guidance as big as a mouse, call a rehabber, a rat, let it be. Those ones are kind of like an 18 year old who's just moved to New York City. You just got to cross your fingers, hope for the best.

Now, for those of us who have dreams of waking up and sharing a pillow with a sleepy opossum who loves us back, such as patrons Shane, Chandra Mason, Julie DePri, Sienna DeCasto Pinto, who wrote, there is one lady on YouTube who has a pet possum that she appears to have kidnapped is having a pet possum problematic. And Patron Violent Badger who asked, would you recommend possums as pets? How can we give them the beautiful life they deserve? In terms of can you keep an opossum? If you want to keep an opossum, you should become a certified wildlife

rehabilitation person and you will be taking care of possums like Steve, where they are deemed non-releasable. Sometimes this is because of metabolic bone disease. Sometimes this is because they imprint on humans and so it wouldn't be safe to release them. I am conflicted about keeping them captive. So for me, it's really if it is a non-releasable animal, then it should go to someone who knows how to take care of it. As I pointed out, their diet is really complicated and you don't want to be

making them more sick and they will make a mess of your house because they want to nest. So that prehensile tail they will also use to wrap around newspaper or like a light blanket or anything that they can grab and bring to what they decide is their den in your house. Also, I guess to be the Debbie Downer in the wild, they live about a year and a half. So you would probably have your opossum for maybe four years. The longest ever recorded, I think is about eight years. She says opossums simply live fast and die young while they live

slowish but can haul ass when they need to, but they die young. And I know that we all wish that there was this idyllic island we could go to filled with wild opossums who live forever and newsflash. This heaven exists, almost. Sappalo is a barrier island off the coast of Georgia. It boasts sand dunes and camping, a pre-Civil War plantation mansion. I do not want to tour, but a population of opossums that has been there for nearly 10,000 years without any predators.

So apparently, Sappalo Island opossums live twice as long as other opossums in nature and they enjoy high fertility rates all the way into the ripe old age of four. But yes, leave them on the islands. And as much as we love the long-faced, screamy bundles of hair and teeth, the idea of keeping one as a pet is perhaps one that should remain on Fantasy Island. So I think they are best admired. But I think it would be really hard to to have a captive opossum and fall in love with it and then lose it so quickly.

Yeah, understood. A few people, Allison, my saying, Vanessa Guerra and Abraham Livingston, all ask questions that I did not know this was a thing. They want to know, well, Allison wants to know I'm obsessed. My question is, why are they the greatest? They're immune to rattlesnake venom. Is this true? All three asked about their role in venom antidotes.

Yeah, so they are immune to rattlesnake venom. I know that there is a grad student at the University of Minnesota looking into it. So she would be a great follow up. OK, I look this up and shout out to Venom researcher and now Dr. Danielle Drabek, who writes on her website, quote, members of the marsupial family didelfidae are not only resistant to snake venom, but also attack and eat pit vipers with impunity, exhibiting no behavioral precautions while subduing these dangerous snakes.

My research, she continues, has revealed that they have evolved a mammalian blood protein, VWF, Von Wilde brand factor, which is resistant to coagulation disruption by these and similar venoms, end quote. So they're superheroes just lurching around your garbage. So what does this mean? Are they going to take over the world? Well, they may help thousands of people who are bitten by snakes in remote regions every year who can't afford super expensive antivenom and a team at San

Jose State University in Dr. Claire Comive's lab is also studying this stuff and looking into synthesizing antivenom from opossum blood proteins. And I just want to high five their tiny pink, witchy little fingers. The opossums are not the scientists. Tess Hebert wants to know, not a question. I just think it's important to bring up opossum penis.

Do they have weird dongs? I mean, only if you think a bifurcated penis is weird. Touché. Daedalphidae, their family, is named to it. It's named for two wombs. So in marsupials, the genitalia is doubled. So to uterine, to vaginas and a bifurcated penis. Wow.

There you go. I mean, that makes sense. It's a tool for every job, you know? Yeah. And what's weirder for female opossums when they are ready to give birth, they don't want the two vaginas competing so they form this pseudo vaginal canal that then closes back up. Another scientist on Twitter called it a space portal vagina. Where it just like it appears and then disappears.

P.S. just in case you thought they could not get weirder female opossums, which are called gills and males, jacks, all have cloacas, which you may remember as the one hole to rule them all from birds and reptiles butts. But yes, a gills double vag grows a third chute down which her tiny clawed babies travel, they shed their weird baby talons, they find a nip, and then they don't nurse, they attach. Once the nipple is in a possum mouth, it gets long, swells and sticks down their gullet. It's down their throat.

It's like a feeding tube made of a swollen nip until they're old enough to just bounce and hitch rides surfing on mama's spine. Speaking of hitches, there must be one. To be such vessels of alien mystique, they must have drawbacks. Are they crawling with disease? Rabies, maybe? Patrons Demi Espinosa, Annie C. Fran G., Sydney Bowers, Jackie Weidra, first time question asker, Kate D.L.

Harissa Leal, Savannah McGuire, Diana Teter and wildlife rehabber Andrea Devlin asked us to address the rabies question. Brie Wilson and many other listeners said, I read somewhere that American opossums are immune to rabies. Is this true? And is that because of body temperature? It is true with an asterisk. And yes, it is because they have a lower body temperature.

It's not easy for them to get rabies, although there are about five to ten cases of opossums that have been found with rabies. Most of them in this area of New York, where they think the rabies has become aerosolized because of something with the water, like the way that their bodies have water work. And so I think if you're in an area with aerosolized rabies, you have bigger things to worry about than a opossum with rabies. Word.

So it's important to know if you see an opossum out in the daytime, it is not because they have rabies. They are nocturnal, but they do what they want. You know, if they are hungry, they're going to go for it. Or I've seen moms moving around from den to den. Also, they do seem to be more active in the daytime during winter, because that's when it's going to be warmest. That's when it's going to be most comfortable for them to get around.

Maybe the snows melted or they're just impatient. They want to go eat because it's been a few days since they've eaten. They have a very slow metabolic rate. So if they skip a day of foraging, that would be like not eating a mouse for them. And if the winter is really bad, if the condition is really bad, they just stay inside. They stay inside their den and they wait it out and they hope for it to get better. They can lose up to 40 percent of their body mass in the winter.

Oh, my God. Yeah, those little skinny little guys, those scrawny little opossums. Yeah, so sad. Extreme weight loss, they could write a book about it. Biohacking, intermittent fasting, they're on it. Yeah. Becky, the sassy seagrass scientist had a great question. Wanted to know where do pouch babies poop?

Is it real gross in there? I believe that they are doing what they need to do in mom's pouch. Number two. But mom, as long as she is healthy, she is going to be actively cleaning that pouch. There's also evidence from other marsupials. This is because Australian marsupials get so much more attention, both from the general public, but also from scientists.

Because, you know, if you're an Australian biologist, why wouldn't you research these marsupials? There's a lot of antimicrobials in the pouch that Tasmanian devil milk seems to be able to kill Marsa. So there's a lot going on in terms of keeping these babies safe that we are really just now starting to scratch the surface at. Because in recent years, the question has been microbiomes. And so people are starting to look at the microbiomes of pouches.

So if a mom opossum comes in to a wildlife rehab center, they can basically gauge her health by seeing how clean her pouch is. The pouch is only going to be dirty if she's really not doing well. Same with my house. Let's be perfectly honest. And again, that goes back to if either the resources are really low or if she's not feeling well. Energetically, it is not worth her time to keep a litter going

because she has to spend so much time and energy in terms of not only making the milk, but keeping that pouch clean and safe. Because all marsupials are born as neonates. They are very underdeveloped. They're not able to thermoregulate for themselves. So it's really up to mom to keep them safe and let them grow inside her pouch. Although I want to point out about 40 percent of marsupials don't have pouches. What? Yeah.

Really? What's going on there? So instead, they just have these little flaps of skin and the young just hang off of mom. So they tend to be smaller species. Again, it's a evolutionary question that is not really being looked at because yeah, marsupials are just so understudied, at least in my opinion. I'm not biased at all. Right? Of course not.

No. But so I think, yeah, I think it has something to do with if you're in too humid of an environment, you would become unable to regulate it and keep, let's say, fungus from growing inside of it. So that's my completely naive hypothesis about why some of these species lost the pouch. And now I want to look at pictures of them hanging off of a skin flap. It sounds gymnastic in a way. It just looks like little jelly beans are growing on her belly.

There are so many people who had questions about feigning their own death. Looking at you, Sarah Moss, Chris Brewer, Sonja, Solomon Sun, M. Kase, Anthony Willis, first time question asker, Chandler Witherington, Sophie Duncan, Sebastian Papineau, Brenna Wing and Janella Lindauer. Star wanted to know, is there an easy way to tell when a possum is dead versus just playing dead and should you move them to a safe space if they're playing dead in a dangerous place, but does their respiratory and heart rate decrease?

What's going on there? In order to tell the difference. So this was this was something I was nervous about when I first started collecting roadkill, because, you know, if it was a really fresh, freshly dead possum, how would I know? Most likely if they are dead, if they're a freshly dead, like if you can't tell, there will probably be blood or the other way to tell is if they don't smell, then they are dead.

Really? If they have feigned death, most likely they have excreted their anal glands because they are trying to convince this predator that has been running after them. A, I'm no longer running, so I'm no longer prey. But also B, look at how gross and stinky I am. You don't want to eat me. Does it work? I mean, it seems to work.

At least we only really know about how well it works for dog attacks and it tends to work, especially because dogs just want to chase after things that are running. And then they're like, oh, you're not fun anymore. In terms of not working, it wouldn't work for birds of prey because they're not going to have a sense of smell. And they are actually going after the possum to to eat it. And apparently younger possums are not as quick at feigning death. So they would be grabbed by the bird of prey, which are the size possums that

these birds would typically be going after anyway. OK, remember 90 percent of possums eat shit and go to heaven before they even hit puberty. Their only defense mechanisms are scrambling up a fence, opening their mouths as if they would bite you, but they typically don't or dramatically freezing, drooling and shitting themselves. The issue is if you touch it, it will prolong how long they stay dead, stay feigning death. They are not actually rising from the dead when they recover from this.

But brain activity, heart rate, it's not it's not changing. So it's similar to feinting for us where, you know, sometimes it'll take us a little bit to recover, maybe possums take a little longer. I've seen a video where someone forced the possum to feign death and they and then they handled it. Please don't do that. Don't do that to wildlife. They sound like just very good

lesbians in a way. Yes, if they're able to convince people. Can we talk a little bit about their screaming capabilities? We had a few people ask such as Janelle Lindauer, Alec Renderman, Savannah Holliman and, for example, Niko Price wants to know if there are any cultures with awesome lore surrounding these adorable, drooling, hissing, screamy boys. Good name for them.

But is there screaming? Are they hissing? Are they screaming? It's typically hissing. The the babies will have this high pitched squeak, which is kind of heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking for me because I've only heard it from a roadkilled mom. So, yeah, I guess if you if you ever come across a roadkilled possum, check for babies and then bring the babies to your local wildlife rehabber. What about lore?

I've tried to look for lore and I have not been able to really find much. So that's a that's a great question. And if there are any listeners who know of some, I would I would love to hear about it. But mostly what I've heard is, you know, the the jokes about how to cook opossums. And I don't want that cookbook. Thanks. People always ask if you hear any jokes about opossums or if you make any jokes about opossums being in the field a lot.

I mostly make the joke that before I give a big presentation, if I'm really scared, I can just play possum and faint in front of the audience. Right, just channel my channel, my study species and faint. Maybe they would go away. But my stage fright has gotten a little better. So no more playing possum for me. Is it a bittersweet at all to be called upon to publicly discuss your study species so much? Do you enjoy talking about it?

I really do enjoy talking about it. I'm passionate about education. And so I think I'm very lucky to have worked on an animal that people recognize and that people want to talk to me about. And that has been gaining internet fame since I started. So I started my master's program in 2012. And then the last few years of my PhD, they were starting to become memes, popular memes that I would see online.

And it was just it was really kind of surreal to see them gain popularity as I moved forward in my studies. R.J. Doge actually was a listener who wrote in and said, not a real question, but like, why are they so cute and memeable? I wonder what the what know your meme has to say about the increasing popularity of possums of opossums. Yeah, I think it helps that they're really resilient and they're around humans a lot, but they're they're nocturnals, so we don't see them a lot.

So when we do see them, we take a picture of them. And their defensive stance of, you know, opening their mouth really wide and hissing, it is very compelling. And the cutest part about all those pictures of a Beetlejuice look in open mouth to the monster is that they're just holding their jaws open, not to gnaw your hand until it's a stringy stump. But just to make you go, oh, I don't believe you're so ugly. So when did we see ourselves in this animal and begin to fall in love with them

on the Internet? Well, I asked the website know your meme to dish some chronology and they delivered. Turns out that in 2018, a Twitter account launched dedicated to possum memes called scrim at own ass and the rest is history. I followed it for years. It's also history, including that account, which seems defunct. It breaks my heart. I miss it so much because just like the possum, all of us have at one point curled

up defensively, unhinged our face and really just let our ass have it for no reason at all. Screaming at own ass is something I think we all feel we could relate to. Exactly. That was one question we got. Probably the most common question we got. So many patrons, so many, but namely Radar the Cat, Madison Grams, Anna Guzman, Jenna A. and Grace Robichaux wanted to know essentially why are they so simultaneously ugly and cute and why can't more people appreciate them?

Why do you think like Sigwani Dina wants to know why are they so ugly? It's so darn cute. Those that was verbiage that so many listeners had. But yeah, how is it possible that they look like a giant rat but also a teddy bear? Just luck of the draw in terms of where evolution led them. So I think that the biggest issue is their naked tail, which hopefully your listeners now know isn't actually naked and the shape of their snout. So marsupials have narrow brain cases.

And so it's this narrow but long snout. I think that makes them cute yet weird at the same time. And with the really big eyes and the big ears, you know, we equate those with things like teddy bears. That's a very good point. Richard Swar and Lauren want to know how do I make them be my best friend? Is that something probably wildlife rehabbers would say? Just admire from afar.

Yeah, I would say admire from afar, set up a I think it's like a hundred ten dollars at Cabela as a trail cam. So if you really love opossums and and if you live in an area where you have any backyard, set up a trail cam so not everyone can do this. But otherwise, you know, start making memes for opossums. Set up a trail cam to see who's stopping by your backyard. Yeah, I don't I don't recommend, you know, sitting out food to attract wildlife because you're going to end up with wildlife

that you don't want or, you know, wildlife are carriers of diseases. Sometimes that doesn't mean that we should do anything bad to them, but we shouldn't be trying to attract them to where they could then spread it to us or domestic animals. Also, side note, you got horses. Maybe don't let opossums shack up in your barn because they can be carriers of EPM, which is equine protozoal myelo encephalitis. So you don't want opossums to poo near the horse's food or water.

I mean, you never want an opossum to poo near anyone's food or water because it's poo, but definitely you don't want it if you have horses. So if you want to be their best friend, honestly, the best way would be to find a wildlife rehab center and see if you can volunteer there. They always need more hands, especially in the spring when all the orphaned babies are brought in. No, yeah, that's a great idea. I think I just found my new volunteer gig.

Oh, yeah. Matt Thompson is curious if you've seen the majesty of the possum lady. This may be the most important video you will ever see. Are you concerned about the mental health of your opossum? Well, you should be. Rajet's Belvin, I think. Any. Yes. Any thoughts?

Do you want to be friends with her? Do you approve? Do you disapprove? I'm all about being weird and being weird with possums. And if if her mystique is helping to propel opossums to to their popularity. Awesome. Awesome possum. Awesome possum.

Look her up and fall down a wormhole into a universe where a perfectly quaffed older woman who looks like Audrey Hepburn stands in a poorly lit apartment, just thumping the bonkos to her rescue possums. Oh, it's wonderful. She also very wisely delivers the PSA that possums belong in the wild, unless they are of the Steve variety. So she knows what's up. I would like to be her.

Any documentaries or movies get it really right or really wrong? That is a good question. I do want to say. I guess I love Parks and Rec and they got it right in that there would be possums sometimes on golf courses and they would be out in the daytime. And unfortunately, they are often vilified because we think that they are going after our pets.

That would be rare. And any animal that is attacked will defend itself. So I don't know if the possum in Parks and Rec actually bit the mayor's dog. Am I sure the possum we caught is fairway Frank? Yes. Am I quite sure? No. So I don't think so. That's the one that comes to mind in terms of possums in the media. Fairway Frank.

That's a good thing. Sorry. I just remember fairway Frank. Just yes, I just remembered. What sucks the most about possums? What sucks the most about your work with possums? Feel free to get negative. It can be anything. I mean, so possums are nomadic and they're solitary.

And so trying to ask genetic questions, doesn't always work because they're not like picking a habitat and staying where they're not staying in one place. They're moving around a lot. So the last chapter of my dissertation was like, what is the genetics of the possum look like across temperate North America? Oh, it's a mess. It's a mess.

So not a great animal to do that research on. I mean, it's interesting because they're such a mess, but it's also bittersweet because there are so many questions that are still unanswered about possums. I hope that chats like this can can spark curiosity in the next possum scientist. What about the thing? Last question I always ask, what about the thing that you love the most about a possums? That that's such a hard question.

I get so I already told the story about Steve. I really, I really like that story. I think that the young possums are just adorable. And I like that there was this fascination with the possums even like a hundred years ago. So are you out in California? We are. Yeah. We're apparently we didn't have a possums here until 1893.

So brought him over. Yeah. Yeah. I love that people from Tennessee were like, we're moving out west. Honey, I'm going to miss Tennessee. Let's bring some possums. Yeah. And then at one point. So I this might have been a different event, but

people raising them for fur in California. They didn't build the pen well enough and the possums broke free. So I I I love the the relationship between humans and possums. Sometimes it's not good. Yeah. Sometimes they're they're vilified. But when they're appreciated or when they won up, the person who was trying to keep them in a pen, I I really like those stories. I as a champion for possums, I think

celebrating their victories is absolutely worthwhile in human nature. Yeah. So ask smart people, bumbling questions and celebrate the victory of others. Now, you can hear more about Dr. Lisa Walsh's work on Twitter. She is at Spouts of Facts, and it'll be linked in the show notes alongside links to the charities and the sponsors and tons more at alleyward.com slash allergies slash opossum ology.

We are friendable on Twitter at ologies or at alleyward with 1L. Same handles on Instagram. And please trust that our feeds will be flooded with possum memes all week long. It's a torrent of them. I'm excited. Thank you, Aaron Talbert for admitting the ologies podcast Facebook group. Hello to all the Redditors on the ology subreddit. Hey, Allergies Merch is available at ologiesmerch.com.

Thank you, Shannon Feltis, Bonnie Dutch and Susan Hale for helping manage that. Thank you, Susan and Noel Dilworth for helping behind the scenes with ologies biz. Thank you, Emily White of the Transcription Service, The Wardery, for turning around transcripts so fast, available for free on my website to anyone who could need them or use them. Thank you to Caleb Patton for all the bleeping. Thank you to Kelly Dwyer for a website design. She's available if you need her.

She is linked in the show notes. Thanks to Stephen Ray Morris and Zeke Rodriguez-Thomas for working on small ologies, more episodes coming soon. And of course, the human critter who fits all the pieces together. Jared Sleeper for helping me get these up on time every week, despite juggling a lot lately, Nick Thorburn wrote the theme music and he is in a very good band called Islands. If you stick around until the end, you know that I burden and divulge a secret. This week, the secret is that I shot my shot.

I reached out to the office of Mr. Dr. Fauci and he is considering an appearance on ologies. I'm very nervous. I just immediately began sweating, telling you that, cross your little opossum fingers, everyone will see what happens. Also, I farted while recording the interview and I really hope the guest didn't hear and I had to ask Jared to cut it out. Okay, bye.

Nephrology, Nephology, Cereology, Cereology. Now, opossum, it's just not like he's Irish.