Mother cat raises unusual kittens

Yes, those are baby Virginia opossums.This time of year, it is not unusual to see a mother opossum trotting along the side of the road with her joeys hanging all over her back.

They are truly a bizarre species. They are the only marsupial found north of the Rio Grande, and their range continues to spread northward. (To read more about them, see my post on Retrieverman).

Before kangaroos were introduced to parts of Europe, the Virginia opossum was the only marsupial located in the Holarctic biogeographical region. Unlike most other mammals in North America, Virginia opossums do not have an undercoat, and their toes, tail tips, and ears often get frostitten during the coldest winters. Their main adaptation to the cold is their very thick layer of fat that they have located just beneath their skins. It is like blubber for a marine mammal.

Most Americans are repulsed by the very idea of eating them. I certainly am. I also know of no one who eats them, and I live in West Virginia, where the sterotype is of a hillbilly eating road-killed opossums. However, they are eaten in some areas, and when they are consumed, they are not killed and eaten immediately. Instead, the hunters collect the opossum alive and keep it in cage for a few weeks, feeding it table scraps. The reason why this is done is because some opossums have a very strong taste for carrion, and carrion supposedly makes the flesh unpalatable.