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How (O)possums Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is
0:16
Speaker 1: a episode of Stuff you should Know. I thought you
0:20
Speaker 1: can say, welcome to the Bossom Cast. I thought about it,
0:23
Speaker 1: and my brain wouldn't wouldn't form that together. I was like,
0:27
Speaker 1: there's a there's a pun in here, and I can't
0:29
Speaker 1: quite grasp it. So that's good. Your your pungen is
0:32
Speaker 1: being dulled. Yeah, it's funny those pungens. They're bald and
0:37
Speaker 1: they have like sheet white skin. I'm not even sure
0:44
Speaker 1: what that means. It means that they look a lot
0:46
Speaker 1: like Jonathan Strickland. I wondered if that's what you meant. Yeah,
0:51
Speaker 1: goodness me, man, I haven't heard from him in a
0:53
Speaker 1: long time. You don't think Strickland tan's up? No, No,
0:57
Speaker 1: I think Strickland up pours the sun. Okay, just a little,
1:02
Speaker 1: just a little note between you and me. I got
1:05
Speaker 1: a question for you. Okay, does this episode on possums
1:11
Speaker 1: or opossums? They're both correct, It's fine either way, right.
1:16
Speaker 1: Does this have anything to do with a certain Instagram follower?
1:20
Speaker 1: It does as a matter of fact, Oh good, we
1:25
Speaker 1: have an Instagram follower and there they Their handle is
1:29
Speaker 1: underscore G. I O I underscore G and I clicked
1:35
Speaker 1: in on it and they have a pronunciation, so I
1:37
Speaker 1: guess it's d oh yeah, okay. And they have been
1:41
Speaker 1: posting since April um. They said they I think I
1:45
Speaker 1: found their first posters on April four and they said, um,
1:49
Speaker 1: I'm going to post every time you post asking for
1:52
Speaker 1: a Possum episode until you finally do. And they have
1:56
Speaker 1: been doing that ever since. I don't think they've missed
1:58
Speaker 1: a single one. Uh yeah, I mean she's persistent. I'll
2:02
Speaker 1: say that, yeah for sure. And maybe you get what
2:06
Speaker 1: you want when you're persistent because we're doing the episode.
2:09
Speaker 1: I'm just curious what she's gonna be up to after this. Nothing.
2:13
Speaker 1: They always goes to us after that, they're like, thanks, chumps.
2:16
Speaker 1: Well here's what I have to say to you, stranger
2:20
Speaker 1: but friend on Instagram. Uh, don't just come at us
2:25
Speaker 1: with some new topic and badgers about that one, especially
2:28
Speaker 1: not badgers, especially not badgers. You're getting your possums to
2:34
Speaker 1: just settle down and enjoy it. You got what you wanted. Yeah,
2:38
Speaker 1: I have to say not just persistent too, but um
2:41
Speaker 1: they were. Also they got kind of funny because after
2:44
Speaker 1: a while he just got sick of saying, like, possum
2:46
Speaker 1: episode please. So for the Nintendo episode, they said that
2:51
Speaker 1: any yes, is the only system we had as kids.
2:54
Speaker 1: Otherwise we played outside with possums. No. No No, she's gotten
2:57
Speaker 1: very creative with how she were in the possum thing,
3:01
Speaker 1: and I think that's that was part of the charm
3:03
Speaker 1: of it. Otherwise it would have just ignored it out
3:05
Speaker 1: of some weird game. Yeah for sure, Yeah, absolutely for sure.
3:09
Speaker 1: So yes, that is that is the impetus for this
3:12
Speaker 1: possum episode. But I'm glad that they they suggested it
3:15
Speaker 1: because I was fine with possums before. But I learned
3:19
Speaker 1: a lot about possums oral possums researching this episode. And
3:25
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, I'm I'm a friend of the possum.
3:28
Speaker 1: Now I am too. At some point you'll hear a
3:32
Speaker 1: first person possum story from me. I just don't know
3:35
Speaker 1: when I'm gonna work it in. That's what in the
3:37
Speaker 1: BIS they call it a teaser. Uh. And if you
3:42
Speaker 1: want to just stop before you even listen any further,
3:44
Speaker 1: if you're near somewhere where you can watch a YouTube video.
3:48
Speaker 1: Just look up Butter bu t t e r at
3:51
Speaker 1: the Possum pet on YouTube and just go ahead and
3:57
Speaker 1: tell me after that that you think possums are like us,
4:00
Speaker 1: are scarier, weird FTC Butter uh work Butter's charms. Okay,
4:06
Speaker 1: I'll go look. I'll go look up Butter later on.
4:09
Speaker 1: But you can imagine is a pet possum who was rescued, rehabbed,
4:14
Speaker 1: I think, with the idea of going back into the wild.
4:16
Speaker 1: But as we'll see, that doesn't always take because sometimes
4:19
Speaker 1: that possum just wants to go back inside and snuggle. Yeah,
4:22
Speaker 1: it sounds like Butter's rehab or checked all the right boxes. Yeah,
4:26
Speaker 1: it's a very cute video. So one of the things
4:29
Speaker 1: that I learned about possums is that I've got um,
4:32
Speaker 1: not only my friend of the possum, I've got possum pride. Now,
4:36
Speaker 1: possom fever that a little bit of that too, but
4:39
Speaker 1: more more pride than anything, because Chuck there there's a
4:43
Speaker 1: there's one specific possum, the Virginia possum, that is native
4:48
Speaker 1: to the United States, traditionally the southern southeastern United States um,
4:54
Speaker 1: and that Virginia possum is the only marsupial native to
4:57
Speaker 1: the United States, and our friends listen in Australia are like, crikey,
5:01
Speaker 1: We've got a million of those here. We'll get this Australia,
5:05
Speaker 1: your marsupials seem to have come according to the fossil
5:08
Speaker 1: record from the America's which means that our possum friends
5:14
Speaker 1: are actually the predecessors of your marsupials, which means chuck.
5:20
Speaker 1: That means that the wombats, the dumbats, the dun Arts,
5:26
Speaker 1: the kangaroos, kalas, and the qualls, the bilbies in the bandicoots,
5:30
Speaker 1: Tasmanian devil, Pasmanian tiger, not to mention the wallabies, they
5:35
Speaker 1: all descend from a North American or South American possum,
5:39
Speaker 1: because that's where all marsupials came from. You forgot about
5:43
Speaker 1: fairy toasts, yeah, which apparently you don't toast. Yeah, big correction, Sorry, Australia,
5:51
Speaker 1: you don't toast very bread. I registered an angry email
5:55
Speaker 1: to the editor of the blog that I got that
5:57
Speaker 1: idea from. By the way, Oh that was from you.
6:01
Speaker 1: What the fairy fairy toast? Yeah? Yeah, you didn't mention it.
6:05
Speaker 1: Did you know I thought that I thought that was
6:07
Speaker 1: submitted by Libya. Okay, I know I found that one.
6:13
Speaker 1: I'm throwing myself under the bus. All right, well I'm
6:16
Speaker 1: driving that bus, buddy, so I'm gonna hit the brakes
6:18
Speaker 1: and I'm not gonna I'm gonna back up so you
6:20
Speaker 1: don't get hit. Oh I got that's an inside. Uh So,
6:31
Speaker 1: your little spiel on possums pointed out a couple of
6:33
Speaker 1: things that I want to point out. One is that
6:36
Speaker 1: possums are not rodents. Yeah. I think a lot of
6:38
Speaker 1: Americans probably think they're kind of in the rat family
6:42
Speaker 1: or something because they look sort of rat like, But
6:44
Speaker 1: they're not. Like you said, they're more soupials. And the
6:47
Speaker 1: other thing is, well, that's it, they're more soup heals.
6:51
Speaker 1: So they have little pouches just like a kangaroo friends,
6:56
Speaker 1: and they keep a little there called Joey's to their
6:58
Speaker 1: little babies or Joey's. Yeah, a baby apossum is called
7:01
Speaker 1: a Joey and cute. Like. I knew what marsupials were,
7:04
Speaker 1: but what I didn't realize is that it was, as
7:06
Speaker 1: far as I can tell, one of two categories that
7:10
Speaker 1: mammals can land in depending on how they they're young,
7:13
Speaker 1: justest date and a marsupial is just a type of
7:17
Speaker 1: animal that, evolutionarily speaking, really emphasizes the lactation phase of
7:23
Speaker 1: development of young, whereas us and just about every other
7:28
Speaker 1: mammal um we're called placentals. We just date our young
7:33
Speaker 1: in the womb for much longer. Um possums, it's a
7:36
Speaker 1: very short time, and then they're in the pouch lactating
7:39
Speaker 1: for a really long time. Yeah. I was surprised to
7:41
Speaker 1: see that when they were born there very very tiny,
7:44
Speaker 1: like on the order of just an inch or so. Yeah,
7:47
Speaker 1: I saw a honey bee size in one place. That's
7:52
Speaker 1: a little possible. And then they're in that pouch like
7:54
Speaker 1: sometimes up to like seventy days. Yeah, getting mother's milk
7:59
Speaker 1: from mom the possum. Yeah. So we'll get to that.
8:02
Speaker 1: We'll get to that, don't don't. Let's not get ahead
8:04
Speaker 1: of ourselves. I know, I'm excited to chuck. But um,
8:07
Speaker 1: back to the fossil record. So uh, it turns out
8:10
Speaker 1: that the the ancestor of all marsupials seems to have
8:13
Speaker 1: emerged in North America, maybe South America at the very least,
8:18
Speaker 1: if they emerged in North America. They traveled down to
8:21
Speaker 1: South America and then Antarctica and then Australia back when
8:24
Speaker 1: all that stuff was connected. And I mean they're really
8:27
Speaker 1: really old. Um. I saw a hundred and forty million
8:30
Speaker 1: years old um. And then the immediate ancestors of possums,
8:35
Speaker 1: which look very similar to today's possums. They have not
8:38
Speaker 1: changed very much, um since about the time the dinosaurs
8:42
Speaker 1: went away sixty five million years ago, right, and since
8:46
Speaker 1: then we've had possums of various types running around Earth.
8:50
Speaker 1: But at one point they died off in North America.
8:53
Speaker 1: Luckily they were a bunch left in South America. And
8:56
Speaker 1: when the Sthmuths of Panama rose again from the sea
9:00
Speaker 1: like poseidon um, like the October. Yeah, just as good,
9:07
Speaker 1: maybe even better chuck uh, they were able to travel
9:10
Speaker 1: back up to North America. And about a million years ago,
9:13
Speaker 1: our friend the Virginia possum evolved and basically said, I
9:17
Speaker 1: really like the Southeast and I'm gonna stay here for
9:19
Speaker 1: the next million years. That's right, And you know what
9:22
Speaker 1: I've forgot. The other thing I was gonna say after
9:24
Speaker 1: your spiel was that you Aussie's out there, you do
9:29
Speaker 1: have something called a possum. Oh yeah, it's not what
9:32
Speaker 1: we have as a possum. It's a it's a different
9:34
Speaker 1: animal altogether. So there is a little bit of confusion there.
9:38
Speaker 1: So if you're if you're buttering up your fairy toast
9:41
Speaker 1: right now and you're really upset, you're like, I've got
9:43
Speaker 1: possums on a lot of these trees. You probably do,
9:47
Speaker 1: but they're not. They're not, and I looked them up.
9:48
Speaker 1: They're very cute too, but they're not like our possums.
9:50
Speaker 1: They are the ones that I saw are called bush
9:52
Speaker 1: tail possums, and they are super cute. But that's a
9:55
Speaker 1: big difference are possums. The Virginia possum spends most of
9:58
Speaker 1: its time on the ground, climbs trees, maybe to find food,
10:03
Speaker 1: maybe to escape a predator. The bush tail possums basically
10:06
Speaker 1: live in trees. They live high up. But they're both marsupials.
10:09
Speaker 1: But there's actually we can pinpoint the jackass that actually
10:13
Speaker 1: created this confusion back in the seventeen fifties. His name
10:17
Speaker 1: was Joseph Banks, right, that's right, um, sorry, the seventeen seventies.
10:22
Speaker 1: Seventeen seventies, what did you say in seventeen fifties. I
10:25
Speaker 1: think I should have said the seventeen fifties, give or
10:29
Speaker 1: take a couple of decades. Banks was a brit He
10:32
Speaker 1: was a naturalist, and he went to Australia with James
10:35
Speaker 1: Cook and in seventeen seventy founder Marsupial and basically said
10:40
Speaker 1: it was the same thing that we had in North
10:42
Speaker 1: America and it really wasn't at all. And uh, you
10:47
Speaker 1: know that that's where that all came from. Yeah, so
10:50
Speaker 1: there's there's your confusion. I guess technically Australia that means
10:54
Speaker 1: that our possums are the real possums. I'm not trying
10:57
Speaker 1: to start a flame war here, I'm just saying that
11:00
Speaker 1: seems to be the case. Yeah, And and since we're there,
11:03
Speaker 1: we might as well cover the opossum thing out of
11:06
Speaker 1: the gate and then we can really get down to business,
11:08
Speaker 1: because they're all correct. Opossum is just fine. Uh. In fact,
11:13
Speaker 1: that that's the original wording that came from an Algonquin
11:16
Speaker 1: word um A p o s o u m a
11:20
Speaker 1: palsum I guess, which means white beast or white dog.
11:24
Speaker 1: And you know you can use either one. You can
11:26
Speaker 1: say o possum you can say possum. You can spell
11:29
Speaker 1: it opossum, you can spell it possom. Yeah. And apparently
11:33
Speaker 1: in Europe, uh, in the Enlightenment period, the eighteenth century,
11:38
Speaker 1: they were nuts for these things. Uh, and they they
11:42
Speaker 1: I guess somebody gave them one to the Royal Society
11:45
Speaker 1: in London. Sorry, this is back in the mid seventeenth century,
11:49
Speaker 1: so the sixteen hundreds. And they looked at it and
11:51
Speaker 1: they're like, this thing is a pouch. It's weird looking.
11:54
Speaker 1: I declare that it's probably a cross between a fox
11:57
Speaker 1: and an ape, some sort of hybrid. That turned out
12:00
Speaker 1: not to be the cases. We'll see. Like you said,
12:02
Speaker 1: possums are their own thing. So let's talk about where
12:06
Speaker 1: you find them here in the United States, because we
12:07
Speaker 1: should say from this basically, from this point on, we're
12:09
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna be talking about the Virginia possum, the
12:13
Speaker 1: American United States possums, right, that's right. Uh. You can
12:20
Speaker 1: tell by their little flashy red, white and blue jumpsuit
12:23
Speaker 1: that they wear. It's very cute. So you mentioned the southeast,
12:27
Speaker 1: and that is very much true. Uh, that is where
12:30
Speaker 1: they were really hanging out for a long time. But
12:33
Speaker 1: starting in about I guess, let should say at least
12:36
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, they started moving on along elsewhere in
12:40
Speaker 1: the country, and they kind of spread around. They were
12:42
Speaker 1: I think they saw him in the mid eighteen hundreds
12:44
Speaker 1: in New York and then other parts of New England
12:47
Speaker 1: and then the Midwest, and basically, as like farms and
12:50
Speaker 1: cities and urban population started springing up, possums kind of
12:54
Speaker 1: followed suit. Because possums, as we'll find out, and you know,
12:57
Speaker 1: every animals really food motivated, but it seems that possums
13:01
Speaker 1: are really really food motivated. So then there were things,
13:05
Speaker 1: you know, a lot more things to eat in a
13:06
Speaker 1: lot more places. So possums started traveling around naturally, and
13:10
Speaker 1: apparently people even took them and dropped them off in
13:13
Speaker 1: other parts of the country, including Washington State. So I'm
13:18
Speaker 1: not really positive, but it seems like you might find
13:23
Speaker 1: a possum almost anywhere in the United States. Now. It's weird.
13:27
Speaker 1: I saw a map of their distribution and if you
13:29
Speaker 1: go up from North Texas and then spread out toward
13:35
Speaker 1: Idaho to the left, and then up towards like maybe Ohio,
13:41
Speaker 1: Illinois to the right, it almost make like a cartoon
13:44
Speaker 1: tornado shape coming out of Texas. They're not there. You're
13:49
Speaker 1: not going to find them there, really weird, but you
13:51
Speaker 1: will find them surrounding the northwest California, Texas, Mexico, and
13:55
Speaker 1: then all down the southeastern United States and now up
13:58
Speaker 1: the eastern side of the Midwest and all along the
14:01
Speaker 1: Eastern seaboard up to Ontario, the lower Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
14:07
Speaker 1: Talk about a mind blower, that is. Yeah, I think
14:10
Speaker 1: they they got their passports in order and wandered into Canada. Yeah.
14:15
Speaker 1: So these people are so friendly, Yeah, and they talk
14:18
Speaker 1: kind of funny and they're very charming. Yeah, that's what
14:20
Speaker 1: you just nailed, Canada and leftover poutine in the back alley.
14:24
Speaker 1: There's nothing to turn your little pink nose up at. No,
14:28
Speaker 1: and food definitely did help them. They're they're like, I
14:30
Speaker 1: like these humans. They're pretty great, and I'm glad they
14:32
Speaker 1: came along because, yes, they're a huge constant food source um,
14:37
Speaker 1: but we're also a source of shelter too, because um
14:41
Speaker 1: possums have a very bare, naked tail that is really
14:44
Speaker 1: off putting to a lot of people, and understandably so,
14:47
Speaker 1: their ears are also naked, and when you put those together,
14:51
Speaker 1: they can get things like frost bite. Um, they can
14:54
Speaker 1: not survive the cold all that well. They do develop
14:57
Speaker 1: a winter coat, but they're just they like it warm
15:00
Speaker 1: for the most part. But as humans have moved further
15:03
Speaker 1: and further north and um, the possums have followed us
15:07
Speaker 1: because we have barnes addicts call spaces uh wall voids
15:12
Speaker 1: like just places for possums to to live in the
15:15
Speaker 1: colder months. So that's another reason why they their range
15:18
Speaker 1: has expanded to Yeah, and the old Virginia possum. Uh,
15:23
Speaker 1: you've seen them around there, about the size of a cat,
15:25
Speaker 1: like a house cat, way anywhere from four to eleven pounds, uh,
15:30
Speaker 1: eleven pound possum. That's that's pretty decent sized possum. I
15:33
Speaker 1: thought up to fourteen my friend. Oh, I'm sure that.
15:36
Speaker 1: I'm sure the tubbier varieties can can pack it in
15:38
Speaker 1: for sure. That will make your forearms burned carrying that
15:41
Speaker 1: around uh two to three ft long, and that's with
15:44
Speaker 1: the tail. And generally the Virginia possum you would describe
15:48
Speaker 1: as sort of whitish gray. Their faces are a little
15:51
Speaker 1: more white, their bodies are kind of gray. But sometimes
15:54
Speaker 1: they'll have little spooches and splotches and bands and things
15:57
Speaker 1: like that. Um, all right, so I think that's a
16:00
Speaker 1: good teaser. And then atomically speaking, and Adam, what's the word?
16:06
Speaker 1: I think you had it? And anatomically is that right? Yeah?
16:10
Speaker 1: It doesn't sound right though, does it? No? It sounded weird. Um.
16:12
Speaker 1: But let's take a break and we'll sort that out
16:15
Speaker 1: and then we'll come back and talk about possum penis
16:17
Speaker 1: right after this. All right, you just bring it on out, please, Well,
16:51
Speaker 1: a possum has a forked penis. And if you can
16:55
Speaker 1: look up a picture and it, um, well, I guess
16:59
Speaker 1: it looks like what do you think it looks like?
17:02
Speaker 1: I am not a sick Oh? So I didn't look
17:04
Speaker 1: it up. Oh you didn't mean you're sick. Oh, I know,
17:07
Speaker 1: I'm teasing. I didn't look it up. I I know
17:10
Speaker 1: kind of what it must look like because from the
17:13
Speaker 1: description Livia put of both the forked penis and the
17:16
Speaker 1: multiple vagina, is that female possums have. I got the
17:20
Speaker 1: gist of it. Yeah, well you just there there it
17:22
Speaker 1: is right there. I buried the lead. Um. Although we
17:25
Speaker 1: should say that colonial Americans once again proved, uh, they
17:29
Speaker 1: had some ingenuity going. But sometimes it could be quite
17:32
Speaker 1: dumb because they saw this forked penis and they said, oh,
17:37
Speaker 1: well that is because they impregnate the female through their nostrils.
17:42
Speaker 1: What else could it be. We know this because we
17:45
Speaker 1: saw the female possums sticking their nose into their pouches
17:50
Speaker 1: and they're giving birth and sneezing out their little Joey's
17:52
Speaker 1: that way right. No, no, I'm saying you got that right,
17:58
Speaker 1: You got it super super wrong out. Sure, but no,
18:01
Speaker 1: it's because they so yeah, if you look up there,
18:04
Speaker 1: it looks a lot like a nematode, a worm of
18:07
Speaker 1: some sort with a club a club foot basically, yeah,
18:12
Speaker 1: so um, but yes, the reason it's forked is because
18:15
Speaker 1: the females have two vaginas that can um, that can
18:19
Speaker 1: be fertilized by sperm, or that can move sperm to
18:23
Speaker 1: their ova. Yeah I think I got it right. Um,
18:27
Speaker 1: and they have a third one for actually giving birth.
18:30
Speaker 1: So that's why the penis is forked. Because they're just like,
18:33
Speaker 1: you know, double your pleasure, doubles, you're fun. They look
18:36
Speaker 1: like little pincers actually, like I guess I'm not seeing
18:40
Speaker 1: a close up. All the ones I'm seeing are like
18:42
Speaker 1: they're like, get a load of this. It's really long.
18:45
Speaker 1: Oh really okay, let me just type in possum penis
18:48
Speaker 1: close up. I'm just gonna go for it. Where are
18:52
Speaker 1: you typing in? Beforeis right? Oh? I had the Google
18:58
Speaker 1: filter on. I see. Yeah, there's one very clear picture.
19:01
Speaker 1: It looks like a little look like little pincers from
19:04
Speaker 1: an insect or something safe searches on. Look at you.
19:08
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding, what the heck was That's not at
19:13
Speaker 1: all what I just saw. Well, all right, oh no,
19:17
Speaker 1: that's a baby possum being born. It's like, what is that?
19:23
Speaker 1: Regardless as a penis? Okay, it's got a forked penis.
19:27
Speaker 1: Let's talk about their teeny tiny brains, because they do.
19:30
Speaker 1: And Livia even put that the wording teeny tiny brains
19:34
Speaker 1: one of the smallest brain to body ratios and mammaled them.
19:38
Speaker 1: Uh and it's kind of cute. Olivia also included a
19:40
Speaker 1: little brief thing of like, how do you find out
19:43
Speaker 1: how big a brain is in little mammals? Well, you
19:46
Speaker 1: take their skulls. If you're scientists, and you put dried
19:49
Speaker 1: beans in there, and then you I would say, you
19:52
Speaker 1: would probably guess the beans is an office, like you know, uh,
19:56
Speaker 1: white elephant gift kind of thing. But then they obviously
19:59
Speaker 1: can out the beans and that's how they tell It
20:01
Speaker 1: makes very good sense, but it seems kind of cute
20:03
Speaker 1: and rudimentary. It does, but I mean it does reveal
20:08
Speaker 1: something really um surprising about the possums. They have a
20:11
Speaker 1: really small brain to body ratio compared to other animals
20:14
Speaker 1: their size. Like the possums brain case held beans, just
20:19
Speaker 1: little beans, not that many. What kind of bean ownder
20:22
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say lentils now, now that's really small. Would
20:27
Speaker 1: like the usually the fun version is jelly beans. Sure,
20:31
Speaker 1: that's kind of big, though, maybe a black eyed pea
20:33
Speaker 1: or something. Okay, we'll go with black eyed piece, dried
20:35
Speaker 1: black eyed piece. They hold twenty five of those. Cats
20:39
Speaker 1: held a hundred and twenty five, Raccoons held a hundred
20:42
Speaker 1: and fifty. And that actually seems to support this longstanding
20:46
Speaker 1: notion that possums are actually kind of dumb. Not true.
20:49
Speaker 1: They're not really dumb at all, and in fact, there's
20:52
Speaker 1: plenty of tests that they've shown their actually surprisingly intelligent.
20:56
Speaker 1: They beat out rats, rabbits, dogs, cats on um remembering
21:01
Speaker 1: where to find food, and then the maze the old
21:04
Speaker 1: standby for proving intelligence in an animal. They actually can
21:08
Speaker 1: beat rats and cats in learning mazes, that's right. And
21:12
Speaker 1: UH also can remember if they've had something that made
21:16
Speaker 1: them sick to eat that they even just tasted like
21:19
Speaker 1: a year later. So again, I think this food thing
21:22
Speaker 1: is really important because it seems like they score really
21:25
Speaker 1: well when there's food involved. Uh. Like you mentioned, they're
21:29
Speaker 1: found in a lot of places in the United States.
21:32
Speaker 1: They really love a dense forest, but you'll see them
21:36
Speaker 1: in cities all over the place. They eat everything basically. Um,
21:41
Speaker 1: they eat little mammals, eat worms, eat insects, eat birds
21:45
Speaker 1: and reptiles, eat seeds and fruits, and obviously garbage there
21:50
Speaker 1: you know, like the raccoon. They will you will find
21:52
Speaker 1: them in a garbage can, just go into town on
21:55
Speaker 1: like a pizza box or something. Yeah, but I saw
21:58
Speaker 1: Chuck that they're often unfair really blamed for knocking over
22:01
Speaker 1: garbage cans because they're the ones who come along after
22:05
Speaker 1: the thing that knocked it over, a raccoon or a
22:08
Speaker 1: dog or something, and they're just scavenging. But they get
22:10
Speaker 1: to blame because they're the one that gets caught. Not fair,
22:13
Speaker 1: just another miscarriage of justice exactly. What about when you
22:19
Speaker 1: see one walk around the day, that means they're rabbit? Right, No, again,
22:23
Speaker 1: another misconceptions there. If if they're walking around the day,
22:28
Speaker 1: it means that they eating is so good that they've
22:30
Speaker 1: abandoned their nocturnal ways and are just doing the human
22:35
Speaker 1: thing and eating whenever they want. They don't have to
22:38
Speaker 1: wait until nighttime to look for food. They can find
22:40
Speaker 1: at anytime. So no, if you see a possum, it
22:43
Speaker 1: does not mean it's rabbit. And as a matter of fact,
22:46
Speaker 1: possums tend to actually be um cleaner than other animals,
22:50
Speaker 1: both disease wise and with fastidiousness. There there as fastidious
22:55
Speaker 1: as cats and cleaning themselves, and they actually clean themselves
22:57
Speaker 1: in similar ways, licking their paw and we're up in
23:00
Speaker 1: their face with the back of their paw. It is
23:03
Speaker 1: super cute. And while they do that chuck, they stand
23:05
Speaker 1: up on their hind quarters and balance themselves with their
23:08
Speaker 1: cute little weird tail. They also have mouths that are
23:12
Speaker 1: cleaner than other animals like cats, and because they have
23:16
Speaker 1: a really low body temperature, they're very unlikely to catch rabies,
23:20
Speaker 1: which means they're also very unlikely to transfer rabies to you.
23:23
Speaker 1: So if you're ever bitten by a possum, which is
23:25
Speaker 1: a very unusual thing. Indeed, as we'll see you are,
23:29
Speaker 1: probably you can just go start reading the newspaper. We
23:32
Speaker 1: don't even have to go to the hospital or anything.
23:33
Speaker 1: Just sit down and get back to your coffee, right,
23:37
Speaker 1: Like it's what drinking coffee reading a newspaper. Don't you
23:42
Speaker 1: know that gen Z is really into throwback stuff, are they?
23:45
Speaker 1: Are they reading newspapers now? If they're not now, I
23:48
Speaker 1: predict they will be in six months and then in
23:51
Speaker 1: seventeen months they'll be done with newspapers. Uh. Possums are
23:56
Speaker 1: also great to have around, um, your neighborhood or your farm. Uh.
24:00
Speaker 1: They will eat and this is astounding. Uh, they love
24:04
Speaker 1: ticks and they will eat five thousand ticks in a
24:07
Speaker 1: single like three or four month period over a season. Man,
24:11
Speaker 1: talk about possum pride chuck. Oh huge, And you know
24:14
Speaker 1: that's a very big deal for people like me that's
24:16
Speaker 1: been a lot of time in the woods and tickboard
24:18
Speaker 1: and disease is such a big thing, you know in
24:20
Speaker 1: the South. Uh, Like I said, if you had a farm,
24:23
Speaker 1: they're gonna eat um critters and vermin that are gonna
24:26
Speaker 1: be making your crops not so great. And the eating slugs,
24:28
Speaker 1: they're gonna be eating beetles. Uh, they're gonna you know,
24:32
Speaker 1: that rotten fruit in that apple tree that you don't
24:34
Speaker 1: care for, They're gonna love that tree because they're gonna
24:37
Speaker 1: eat everything that's drop on on the ground. And if
24:40
Speaker 1: they're mice and rats around, they'll probably chase them off
24:43
Speaker 1: or eat them and or eat them. Yeah, because they
24:45
Speaker 1: will eat basically anything like even actual garbage. Like you said, um,
24:51
Speaker 1: they'll also eat carrion, which makes them a really unusual
24:54
Speaker 1: animal because there's not many animals out there that actually
24:57
Speaker 1: are carrion eaters. But if they come along road kill,
25:01
Speaker 1: they'll eat the road kill. And in fact, they've been
25:04
Speaker 1: known to eat entire rabbits uh that they find as
25:07
Speaker 1: road killed. Because they have such a need for calcium,
25:11
Speaker 1: they will, um, they will eat the entire skeleton because
25:14
Speaker 1: they have to. They got to get that calcium big time.
25:17
Speaker 1: But because of this, because they're so good at cleaning
25:19
Speaker 1: up an environment, an ecosystem that they come along to,
25:23
Speaker 1: their um sometimes called nature sanitary engineer. See no one,
25:28
Speaker 1: no one ever says that. No, well, we're saying that
25:31
Speaker 1: now I love it. Possum pride. We should get we
25:34
Speaker 1: should get shirts. I think we should too. Uh. As
25:38
Speaker 1: far as they're bedding down and stuff like that, they
25:41
Speaker 1: are not ones that are typically gonna build their own den. Uh.
25:46
Speaker 1: They're more like um rehabbers. They will go into someone
25:49
Speaker 1: else's abandoned in and they'll fix it up a little bit.
25:53
Speaker 1: They'll bring their own grass and twigs and leaves and
25:56
Speaker 1: kind of line it and uh and cover up any
26:00
Speaker 1: drafty areas if they want to stay warmer. But they're
26:03
Speaker 1: not gonna stick around for too long. They just hold
26:05
Speaker 1: up on these dens for a few days. They're probably
26:08
Speaker 1: resting there during the day. They have found that, um
26:12
Speaker 1: a little mamas. Maybe there for a few weeks at
26:16
Speaker 1: a time, if they found a really good hidy hole
26:18
Speaker 1: because they've got a lot going on with their little
26:22
Speaker 1: Joey's in there, or if it's in the wintertime or something.
26:27
Speaker 1: But they do they do travel. They will get around
26:29
Speaker 1: in a surprising fashion, right. Yeah. They Some guy tagged
26:33
Speaker 1: them with alright guess r f I D trackers and
26:37
Speaker 1: found that, um, some of them will move up to
26:40
Speaker 1: fifteen miles in a few weeks. Maybe that's that's a
26:44
Speaker 1: long way with those little legs. Yeah. Um. And that's
26:46
Speaker 1: actually an argument against keeping possums as pets is that
26:51
Speaker 1: you're probably not going to be able to get them
26:53
Speaker 1: the exercise that they would get in the wild. They
26:56
Speaker 1: move around a lot. Yeah, just stffif. Or another way
27:02
Speaker 1: to put it is, if you have a postum pet,
27:04
Speaker 1: you need to take them out for a walk quite frequently.
27:07
Speaker 1: Oh man, I'd love to see that. Um. You mentioned
27:10
Speaker 1: how they'll like line the dens or burrows that they
27:14
Speaker 1: borrow from other animals with like twigs and leaves and
27:17
Speaker 1: stuff like that. The way that they collect that stuff
27:21
Speaker 1: is they have um opposable like thumbs basically on their
27:25
Speaker 1: front and back feet, and so they'll gather like leaves
27:29
Speaker 1: with their front their front hands basically is what they're called.
27:32
Speaker 1: They'll push them under themselves to their back feet there
27:35
Speaker 1: with their feet, they'll kind of bunch them up, and
27:37
Speaker 1: then they pick it up with their tail and they'll
27:40
Speaker 1: carry it off to the den in their tail, like
27:43
Speaker 1: the old person with the bundle of sticks on the
27:46
Speaker 1: cover of led Zeppelin front, but with the tail instead. Yeah,
27:51
Speaker 1: the old guy with the tinder bunch on his back. Yeah, Uh.
27:56
Speaker 1: They and you know, speaking of tails, you've kind of
27:57
Speaker 1: dropped a little tail tidbits here and there. Uh, they
28:00
Speaker 1: can hang from those tails. It's not something you're gonna
28:02
Speaker 1: see a lot. And I get the impression just from
28:05
Speaker 1: looking at pictures that younger possums hang from their tail
28:09
Speaker 1: a little bit more than full grown ones. It's probably
28:12
Speaker 1: because it's it's taxing once you're like a you know,
28:15
Speaker 1: eleven pound possum to hang from your tail. But they
28:18
Speaker 1: will do it every now and then. If you look
28:20
Speaker 1: up pictures of hanging possums, they'll they'll use that tail
28:23
Speaker 1: to wrap around a branch every now and then. Yeah,
28:26
Speaker 1: they're they're they're I think the only animal in North
28:28
Speaker 1: America with the prehensible tails, right, which means they can
28:32
Speaker 1: use the tail as an like a fifth hand. Yeah. Um.
28:37
Speaker 1: The other thing about that, though, is the idea that
28:39
Speaker 1: they sleep upside down hanging from their tails. That seems
28:42
Speaker 1: to be cartoon myth. Essentially, they don't do that. They
28:46
Speaker 1: sleep in their burrows. Yeah, they're not, like, they're not bats. No,
28:51
Speaker 1: do you want to talk about um little baby possums now? Yeah,
28:57
Speaker 1: they're super cute. Um. I guess the sad part that
29:00
Speaker 1: we should go ahead and say is that apossums life
29:03
Speaker 1: is pretty short. It's about two years in the wild, um,
29:07
Speaker 1: maybe three or four if they're living in someone's house. Yeah.
29:11
Speaker 1: You hear two years and you're like, well, yeah, all
29:12
Speaker 1: those cars are skewing it downward for sure. But no,
29:15
Speaker 1: if they're in captivity and it's just another year or
29:18
Speaker 1: two more, they they're just not destined to live very long. Yeah,
29:21
Speaker 1: I'm sure the cars don't help, though, No, for sure.
29:24
Speaker 1: I've never ran over a possum. Thankfully. That's great. I
29:27
Speaker 1: think you should have a key chain that says that.
29:31
Speaker 1: But you know what I did do one time. I
29:34
Speaker 1: think it's a good time for my story. Okay, you
29:36
Speaker 1: know what, let's save the story for the next break.
29:38
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Uh. As far as their litters, this
29:42
Speaker 1: is another thing that's a little you know. I guess
29:44
Speaker 1: it's sort of why they've been around for you know, however,
29:48
Speaker 1: many tens of millions of years. But it is a
29:50
Speaker 1: little sad. They will have um way more babies, generally
29:56
Speaker 1: than they have ability to feed them. The mom has
30:01
Speaker 1: a maximum of thirteen nipples, sometimes not even that any,
30:05
Speaker 1: and sometimes they will have up to five little half
30:09
Speaker 1: inch babies, uh, anywhere from four to twenty five. But
30:13
Speaker 1: you know that means in some of these litters, half
30:15
Speaker 1: of them literally just won't have literally won't have food
30:21
Speaker 1: for mama, and they're just you know, they're basically abandoned. Yeah,
30:25
Speaker 1: the mom's like natural selection sucks. Kids are no but
30:29
Speaker 1: we but we survive over the long term. So um,
30:33
Speaker 1: the like we said, the little baby possums are about
30:37
Speaker 1: the size of a honeybee. When they're born, they just
30:39
Speaker 1: state in the womb. For Olivia says twelve the thirteen
30:43
Speaker 1: days I saw twenty eight days, um, and then after
30:47
Speaker 1: that they're born, but they're kind of just partially born.
30:51
Speaker 1: They emerged from the womb wearing something called the paraderm,
30:55
Speaker 1: which is essentially like a um a placenta that they
31:00
Speaker 1: can that's wrapped around them. It's like as snuggy, but
31:02
Speaker 1: a placenta version of it. And the only openings they
31:05
Speaker 1: have to them in the world are holes for their nostrils,
31:08
Speaker 1: because they use their sense of smell throughout their lives.
31:11
Speaker 1: But even like the first thing they do is use
31:13
Speaker 1: their sense of smell and then their mouth, which they
31:15
Speaker 1: used to latch onto the nipple, and when they come
31:17
Speaker 1: out of the birth canal, they climb up to that pouch,
31:21
Speaker 1: climb in and latch onto a nipple. And the reason
31:24
Speaker 1: that they know to climb upward is because they have
31:27
Speaker 1: a sense of smell, so they know where to go
31:30
Speaker 1: based on the sense of smell. They also know to
31:32
Speaker 1: climb upward because the other sense that they're born with
31:34
Speaker 1: is a sense of gravity, so they know what's down
31:36
Speaker 1: and what's up. And with those two things, they can
31:39
Speaker 1: emerge blind and deaf with only a sense of smell
31:42
Speaker 1: in a mouth um to to climb up and basically
31:45
Speaker 1: survive if they can find a nipple latch onto man.
31:48
Speaker 1: Birth order really matters in a situation like this. Really
31:53
Speaker 1: you here, I am, Let's party. Uh. As far as
32:00
Speaker 1: the kind of sounds they make, they um are are
32:04
Speaker 1: pretty quiet generally, like, it's not like they walk around
32:07
Speaker 1: howling or making weird noises. Uh. The mom will use
32:11
Speaker 1: sort of a clicky sound um either during mating season
32:15
Speaker 1: or to call their little babies back to the pouch
32:18
Speaker 1: um and they can make a sort of hissing uh.
32:23
Speaker 1: Livy describes as a growl too, But in my experience,
32:27
Speaker 1: tease again, it's more of a hiss when a possum
32:31
Speaker 1: feels cornered. Okay, yeah, that's all I've ever seen is
32:35
Speaker 1: a like when a possum is angry, it's hissing. That's it, right,
32:39
Speaker 1: or potentially playing possum. And that is a thing. It's
32:42
Speaker 1: not a choice that they make. It's almost like a
32:45
Speaker 1: fainting goat kind of situation. It is an involuntary response
32:49
Speaker 1: if they have an extreme fear situation, and this is
32:52
Speaker 1: after they've tried everything else. Uh, they will they will
32:56
Speaker 1: go limp like a little fainting goat. They will fall down,
32:59
Speaker 1: They poop themselves or pee themselves. They may stick their
33:03
Speaker 1: tongue out and drool. Uh. And it all sounds kind
33:06
Speaker 1: of funny, but it's kind of sad because they can't
33:09
Speaker 1: do anything about it. And when they're like this, another
33:11
Speaker 1: animal could just be ravaging them and they will still
33:14
Speaker 1: be in that state. The thing is is that the
33:17
Speaker 1: animals probably not doing that because when they just fall
33:20
Speaker 1: over and seem dead, all of the triggers that that
33:24
Speaker 1: create predation behavior in um, that animal that had them
33:28
Speaker 1: cornered just suddenly turn off. And the animals like, what
33:31
Speaker 1: was I doing? Oh yeah, I was chasing this ball
33:34
Speaker 1: and that's it. You know. The possums left alone typically,
33:37
Speaker 1: so it actually works really well, but that's like the
33:41
Speaker 1: last last resort. The possums also really good at bluffing,
33:45
Speaker 1: showing its teeth. They have fifty teeth and can bear
33:48
Speaker 1: their teeth hiss like you said, um, they can growl um.
33:52
Speaker 1: They can seem kind of intimidating, but the thing is
33:55
Speaker 1: it's it's all bluffing, like they do not want to
33:58
Speaker 1: fight your cat or your dog or you. And if
34:00
Speaker 1: you have a possum that is sitting there hissing at
34:03
Speaker 1: you or your dog or your cat, you're actually being
34:05
Speaker 1: really cruel to it. They just want to be left alone,
34:08
Speaker 1: and they're in an extremely stressful situation that they know
34:11
Speaker 1: they can't really win. They're not good at fighting, um,
34:14
Speaker 1: so they basically do what they can to appear sick,
34:18
Speaker 1: like they'll drool, they'll release it really nasty fluid, and
34:22
Speaker 1: then hope that you'll just leave them alone. And you
34:25
Speaker 1: should leave them alone. But also when you're leaving alone,
34:27
Speaker 1: realize like that that possum wasn't going to do anything.
34:30
Speaker 1: It's it's just all talk basically, and that makes it
34:33
Speaker 1: even cuter in my mind. I agree. I think it's
34:37
Speaker 1: a great time for a second break in a perfect
34:39
Speaker 1: setup for my story. Okay, we're back, and here is
35:11
Speaker 1: my story. Uh, senior year in high school, going back
35:16
Speaker 1: to my very first girlfriend's house. Mallory. Hi, Mallory, she
35:20
Speaker 1: just ran for congress in Georgia. That sounds so made up, chuck, No,
35:26
Speaker 1: she did. She lost. I had a girlfriend, you and nurse.
35:28
Speaker 1: She's from Canada and she ran for congress. Uh. But
35:32
Speaker 1: she was my very first girlfriend. We were going back
35:34
Speaker 1: to her house after a date, walked her up onto
35:36
Speaker 1: the front porch, uh, like I traditionally would do for
35:40
Speaker 1: a little good lip smack and probably and we kind
35:43
Speaker 1: of were laughing like we were always doing, and ran
35:46
Speaker 1: up on the front, very small front porch, probably one
35:48
Speaker 1: of those like a little, you know, five by five
35:51
Speaker 1: front porches. And there was a possum on this porch
35:56
Speaker 1: trapped and immediately turned around and started it was like
36:00
Speaker 1: something out of a movie. Immediately turned around and started
36:03
Speaker 1: hissing at us. Mallory starts screaming, I I'm not sure
36:07
Speaker 1: what I did. I kind of froze. I think, like,
36:09
Speaker 1: what am I supposed to do here? And Uh. This
36:12
Speaker 1: possum immediately then tried to squeeze under the um the
36:17
Speaker 1: railing to you know, get off the porch, and was
36:21
Speaker 1: so tubby he got his little body stuck. And this
36:23
Speaker 1: little possum was kind of stuck in hissing and wriggling,
36:27
Speaker 1: Mallory screaming. I'm I was probably thinking, well, I'm definitely
36:30
Speaker 1: not getting any lips smacking, thank you, bosom, and that
36:34
Speaker 1: this problem that was my bossom story. Eventually wriggled his
36:38
Speaker 1: way free and ran off. Okay, I had a good
36:40
Speaker 1: laugh about it, but and no one was hurt. But
36:43
Speaker 1: I had a very very very close encounter. We're talking,
36:46
Speaker 1: you know, inches defeat. Uh, And it was funny. It's
36:50
Speaker 1: a very fun memory for me. I wonder if that
36:52
Speaker 1: possum remembered it later on too. I was just laughing
36:55
Speaker 1: and shaking his head like I gotta lose some weight.
36:57
Speaker 1: I wonder if that possum tells that story on it's podcast.
37:01
Speaker 1: Does uh does Mallory remember that story? Oh, I'm sure
37:04
Speaker 1: she does. I didn't. Uh, we're not very much in touch,
37:07
Speaker 1: but I did see her a couple of years ago
37:10
Speaker 1: at my nephew's wedding and We had a great time
37:12
Speaker 1: catching up and and her meeting Emily and me meeting
37:15
Speaker 1: her family. But we did not talk about the possum. Okay,
37:20
Speaker 1: I bet you anything, she would remember. I think that
37:22
Speaker 1: was a missed opportunity, Chuck, to talk about the possum. Yeah,
37:27
Speaker 1: I probably should have mentioned it. So that's a great
37:29
Speaker 1: possum story. The only possum story I have um is
37:32
Speaker 1: I remember finding one in the wood pile outside of
37:35
Speaker 1: our house in Ohio and my dad grabbing it by
37:38
Speaker 1: its tail and carrying it over like to the woods
37:42
Speaker 1: to release it. And that thing was trying to curl
37:45
Speaker 1: up like toward my dad's arm. And at the time,
37:48
Speaker 1: I was like, God, that possum would kill my dad
37:50
Speaker 1: if I had the chance. And now I realized that
37:53
Speaker 1: possum wasn't wasn't doing anything. He was just really mad
37:55
Speaker 1: and really scared. Yeah, and they had those big fangs
37:58
Speaker 1: we should mention. So it's it's a little intimidating when
38:00
Speaker 1: one is when you're seventeen and one is hissing at
38:03
Speaker 1: you on the front porch. But you know, your dad
38:07
Speaker 1: was country strong. I guess he would I never thought
38:12
Speaker 1: about that, but yeah, he is kind of country strong. Uh,
38:15
Speaker 1: we mentioned having them as pets. Um, it's not a
38:17
Speaker 1: great idea. They're not great pets because they don't let
38:21
Speaker 1: you know when they're sick. You're probably not gonna have
38:23
Speaker 1: a diet that's quite right for him. They're probably gonna
38:26
Speaker 1: be undernourished under exercise. They're just not an animal that
38:29
Speaker 1: you should keep in the house. Um. Some states say
38:32
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to, others say you can if you
38:35
Speaker 1: have a permit. But like you mentioned earlier, there are
38:39
Speaker 1: rescue people who rehab them because you know, if mommy
38:43
Speaker 1: gets hit by car or dies by any other way,
38:45
Speaker 1: the babies are out there a lot of times and
38:48
Speaker 1: their aim is to rehab them and send them back
38:49
Speaker 1: into the wild. But sometimes it doesn't take and they
38:51
Speaker 1: end up cute pets on YouTube. Man, that was a mouthful,
38:54
Speaker 1: but you got it right though. Yeah. So, Um, there's
38:59
Speaker 1: another way that people can interact with possums, and that
39:03
Speaker 1: is by eating them. Apparently the indigenous tribes of North America,
39:08
Speaker 1: and I'm guessing South America too, because there's plenty of
39:10
Speaker 1: possum down there as well, but different species. Um, they
39:14
Speaker 1: ate them. And this got passed along very quickly to
39:17
Speaker 1: the earliest colonists to the America's who said it tastes
39:22
Speaker 1: like pig. Basically, yeah, that seems to be like there
39:26
Speaker 1: are several quotes here from Libya that where everyone roundly
39:31
Speaker 1: agrees that they taste like pig. So I'll take their
39:33
Speaker 1: word for it. I will too, But I'm like, okay,
39:36
Speaker 1: I can totally understand why you would eat a postum.
39:38
Speaker 1: Then all you have to do is here one time,
39:40
Speaker 1: that thing over there tastes like pig, and people are
39:43
Speaker 1: gonna eat it because you know, everybody likes the taste
39:47
Speaker 1: of pig. But if you feel guilty about eating pig,
39:50
Speaker 1: you've got the possum alternative out there for you. I
39:53
Speaker 1: guess so. Uh. And the way it worked a lot
39:55
Speaker 1: of times is they would want to catch the possum
39:58
Speaker 1: alive rather than kill it, so they could bring the
40:01
Speaker 1: possum home, and for a couple of reasons, they could
40:04
Speaker 1: either save it for Sunday dinner because it's a little
40:06
Speaker 1: more special of a meal maybe, And the other important
40:09
Speaker 1: reason is, you know, you want to make sure that
40:12
Speaker 1: possums not carrying again, they're not big disease carriers. But
40:15
Speaker 1: they may not have known this back then. So this
40:18
Speaker 1: sort of wisdom at the time was to uh, wait
40:20
Speaker 1: a few days, feed it something good, maybe fatten it
40:23
Speaker 1: up a little bit, huh, and make sure it's not sick,
40:26
Speaker 1: and then kill it and need it. Yeah. And I
40:29
Speaker 1: think in addition to making sure it was not sick,
40:31
Speaker 1: just not knowing what eight but knowing that a possibly anything.
40:35
Speaker 1: And if it hasn't passed that stuff yet, then you're
40:38
Speaker 1: kind of eating it and you might be like, guh,
40:41
Speaker 1: dead vulture. What it's a dead vulture? A possum does.
40:46
Speaker 1: So the other thing that you could do, too, is
40:48
Speaker 1: if you have it alive, you can wait until Sunday dinner,
40:50
Speaker 1: which was a big thing and the joy of cooking.
40:54
Speaker 1: Chuck had a recommendation um that if you feed a
40:58
Speaker 1: trap possum, or if you trap a possum alive, feed
41:01
Speaker 1: it milk and cereals for ten days. I guess, I
41:05
Speaker 1: guess like maybe cookie crunch or something. Yeah, no, cookie crisp,
41:09
Speaker 1: That's what it was. Honey nut cheerios, you name it.
41:12
Speaker 1: M hm. Um, have you had the multi grain cheerios?
41:16
Speaker 1: They're really good? Yeah, Rubyat says they're good. They're good. Um,
41:20
Speaker 1: And then uh, for ten days you feed them milk
41:24
Speaker 1: and cereal and then you can have them for dinner.
41:27
Speaker 1: And then there's one other thing about it too. It
41:29
Speaker 1: was apparently a traditional Thanksgiving food in a lot of
41:31
Speaker 1: Southern places, right yeah, and Thanksgiving you they're gonna beating
41:35
Speaker 1: all kinds of acorns and chestnuts and things like that
41:38
Speaker 1: back when mast we had the American chestnut. Here's that
41:42
Speaker 1: word again, mast uh. And I think that would fatten
41:46
Speaker 1: them up and improve their flavor as well. So then
41:50
Speaker 1: you got this naturally fatten possum for Thanksgiving, uh, where
41:54
Speaker 1: you might make something called possuminator, which is a very
41:57
Speaker 1: very popular dish, would was like red pepper or possum
42:02
Speaker 1: baked with some sweet taters. Yeah. And the other thing
42:06
Speaker 1: is you didn't need a gun. You wouldn't typically go
42:08
Speaker 1: out and shoot a possum, which made it a very
42:11
Speaker 1: like low barrier to entry for hunting mammals. You would
42:16
Speaker 1: just like tree the possum and then basically shake the
42:19
Speaker 1: tree and get that possum to fall out. And at
42:23
Speaker 1: that point, the possum may even be playing dead, so
42:25
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy taking I think exactly um, which is
42:29
Speaker 1: so sad. I mean, that's they're easy to hunt because
42:32
Speaker 1: they're kind of docile. You know. Tell that to Jimmy Carter. Yeah,
42:37
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter had a lot of them. Apparently said that
42:39
Speaker 1: his family got through the depression by eating lots of possum.
42:43
Speaker 1: And he's far from the only president that's possum adjacent um.
42:48
Speaker 1: Apparently Washington sent some to an Irish member of Parliament,
42:52
Speaker 1: Sir Edward Newen new In him in Jefferson like to
42:57
Speaker 1: give them out to the French when he was the
43:00
Speaker 1: Minister to France. And then uh Taft, William Howard Taft
43:06
Speaker 1: was famously served one by the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce
43:09
Speaker 1: in nine Yeah, and this one led to a you know,
43:13
Speaker 1: because of uh, we should do it either a long
43:16
Speaker 1: one on Theodore Roosevelt or a short one on the
43:18
Speaker 1: Teddy Bear, or maybe a long one on the Teddy Bear.
43:21
Speaker 1: But you know, the Teddy Bear came along thanks to
43:23
Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt. And there was a cartoonist, Louis c. Greg
43:28
Speaker 1: who had this idea, Well, now we have William Taft,
43:31
Speaker 1: so what about Billy possum instead of Teddy Bear? And
43:35
Speaker 1: even gave this Billy possum stuffed toy tow Uh Taft,
43:40
Speaker 1: and I think Taft said, oh, this is great, but
43:42
Speaker 1: it seemed like, you know, it just didn't fly. They
43:45
Speaker 1: tried to get it to take off, and it just
43:46
Speaker 1: didn't take off. Billy possum never took off. But we
43:51
Speaker 1: have a great tidbit to end on that. I think
43:54
Speaker 1: maybe the fact of the show what which is that
43:57
Speaker 1: possums are highly highly resistant to not only just snake
44:03
Speaker 1: bite but venom period. Right, that's absolutely true, man, And
44:07
Speaker 1: apparently they found this out by accident. They were observing
44:10
Speaker 1: possums in the wild and someone get bit by like
44:13
Speaker 1: a rattlesnake, maybe in the Everglades, and they're like, man,
44:17
Speaker 1: this possums toast and just looked, yeah, it's kind of
44:22
Speaker 1: brushed his shoulders off and shrugged and walked away. And
44:25
Speaker 1: the researchers were like, what is that. So they captured
44:28
Speaker 1: possums and started exposing them to snake bites, which is
44:32
Speaker 1: really mean. Those possums were like, what are you guys doing?
44:36
Speaker 1: This is nothing. So they're like, okay, fine, possum, we're
44:40
Speaker 1: gonna start injecting you intravenously with massive amounts of snake
44:44
Speaker 1: venom and nothing like the most they could get out
44:47
Speaker 1: of the possums was something that would look like a
44:50
Speaker 1: like a human that wasn't allergic to a bee got
44:52
Speaker 1: a beasting. Yeah, and and we're talking like cobras and
44:56
Speaker 1: asps or an ugnc s. But vipers, yeah, pit vipers,
44:59
Speaker 1: pit vipe or as rattlesnakes. Like it wasn't like, uh,
45:03
Speaker 1: you know, the more severe venom had a worse effect.
45:07
Speaker 1: The possum was still just like, have you not got
45:09
Speaker 1: it by now? The venom doesn't bother us, exactly, stop
45:14
Speaker 1: biting me and giving me shots. So they started looking
45:17
Speaker 1: into the possums um mechanism for not getting sick or
45:22
Speaker 1: dying from venom. And they have a special protein they
45:26
Speaker 1: may be the only animal that has it that encapsulates
45:29
Speaker 1: and deactivates the venom when it enters their bloodstream crazy
45:33
Speaker 1: and just does nothing. And they're actually like this possum
45:36
Speaker 1: protein might actually save lives and then weirdly, in a
45:39
Speaker 1: weird twist, it also protects them against botuli is um too.
45:44
Speaker 1: And to put a cherry on top of all of this,
45:47
Speaker 1: they have synthesized what's called as lt n F lethal
45:52
Speaker 1: toxin neutralizing factor. It's protein they've been able to synthesize
45:56
Speaker 1: it now and they don't even need any more possum.
46:00
Speaker 1: They can just keep resynthesizing it. And they're thinking like, hey,
46:04
Speaker 1: this may be a literal like cure for snake bite, right, yeah,
46:11
Speaker 1: Like how far away are they from just calling it
46:13
Speaker 1: and saying, all right, guys, we got it days day
46:17
Speaker 1: really okay, days at the very least pit vipers and
46:20
Speaker 1: those are the ones you gotta worry about, you know.
46:22
Speaker 1: So yeah, way to go, possums, possum pride? Am I right,
46:26
Speaker 1: possum pride? You got anything else? I got nothing else? Well?
46:30
Speaker 1: Big shout out as an f y I to Jerry's
46:33
Speaker 1: daughter and Nez, who Jerry tells us loves possums, which
46:38
Speaker 1: means that and as is ahead of the curve because
46:40
Speaker 1: she loves possums before we did, So big ups in
46:43
Speaker 1: s I love it, Yeah for sure. And since I
46:46
Speaker 1: said big ups, and as it's time for a listener mail,
46:52
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this more defense of me and Gordon Lightfoot.
46:57
Speaker 1: You just can't let this go, can you? Hey? I
47:00
Speaker 1: keep getting emails. I've let it go. I think I
47:02
Speaker 1: know the one you're talking about, and I agree with this.
47:05
Speaker 1: This person if they're if it's the one I'm thinking of, Yeah,
47:07
Speaker 1: it's for Mimi, And Mimi says this, Hey, guys, just
47:09
Speaker 1: listen to the listener mail on toast and I feel
47:13
Speaker 1: like I should apologize as a Canadian for the Canadians accusing,
47:17
Speaker 1: accusing Chuck of young yuncking for not liking Gordon Lightfoot.
47:20
Speaker 1: This is the one it, Mimi says. By the way,
47:23
Speaker 1: I don't even know Gordon Lightfoot. Because I'm a millennial.
47:26
Speaker 1: People are allowed to have opinions and not like things,
47:29
Speaker 1: especially when the thing is so subjective, like different taste
47:32
Speaker 1: in music and movies. I thought yum yucking was criticizing
47:35
Speaker 1: or judging people negatively because of what they like. Yes,
47:39
Speaker 1: I think in this way, Chuck is actually being yum
47:42
Speaker 1: yucked by other people for the music he doesn't like.
47:44
Speaker 1: It's all very meta. Uh And, on a personal note,
47:47
Speaker 1: please come back to Vancouver. I've seen you when he
47:50
Speaker 1: came in twenty seventeen. Uh Ford pinto no idea what
47:55
Speaker 1: that was before your show? Even, Mimi, where do you live? Well,
48:01
Speaker 1: apparently near Vancouver. Uh And is younger, so you know
48:05
Speaker 1: that explains a lot. Anyway, I had tickets to your
48:09
Speaker 1: March show before it was canceled. Oh, we had to
48:12
Speaker 1: cancel Vancouver. Yeah, we just did San Francisco maybe or
48:18
Speaker 1: we did one before. I can't remember. I think we
48:20
Speaker 1: only did two shows and and yeah, Vancouver got canceled.
48:24
Speaker 1: Well we out with the Vancouver to come back then.
48:25
Speaker 1: I didn't remember that that was on the canceled list.
48:28
Speaker 1: So uh, sorry about that, Mimi, But thank you for
48:31
Speaker 1: getting my back. And here's a deal. If when we
48:34
Speaker 1: come back to Vancouver, just reply to that email thread
48:38
Speaker 1: that we had going and say guest list and you're
48:42
Speaker 1: on it, and say it's me Mimi. That's right, Thank you, Mimi.
48:48
Speaker 1: I agree with you. I think Fuck was being yum yucked.
48:51
Speaker 1: I also kind of see why some people were upset
48:54
Speaker 1: with him. So I'm just since I'm Switzerland over here, okay,
48:59
Speaker 1: but wash h. If you want to be like Mimi
49:02
Speaker 1: and get in touch with us to defend shock or
49:05
Speaker 1: you know, take them down to peg whatever, as long
49:07
Speaker 1: as it has nothing to do with me, you can
49:09
Speaker 1: send us an email to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio
49:13
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
49:18
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
49:22
Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
49:25
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.