Playing Possum

Last night we took Excalibur for a late night walk, as usual. Ex shot out of the door to the end of  his leash and snatched a poor opossum out of the shrubbery, all in the few seconds it took us to shut the front door. He got a few mortal shakes in before obeying Ron's command to "DROP IT!"  Ex left the poor lifeless opossum curled up by the garage door while we went on with our walk, chattering about this surprising event. How could our lovey dovey Ex have killed something? In just a few seconds? We were proud and repulsed at the same time. We felt safer, knowing that Ex might protect us from an intruder (well, if the intruder were an opossum). But what about the body? What does one do with deceased wildlife? Bury it? Throw it in the garbage? Say a blessing before casting it off in a fiery funeral pyre on the canal? All Ron would confirm was that it would have to wait until morning. But not before I could take a picture, I told him. We returned home from our walk, and the opossum was......gone. Apparently it was not actually dead, just "playing possum". How interesting to have witnessed this "playing possum" tactic, used by an actual opossum.

This morning I had to do a little internet research to learn more about this.  It seems that the opossum is not actually carrying out a conscious defense move. It's a reflexive action more like passing out from sheer terror. The whole body goes limp, the tongue hangs out, the eyes roll back, the heart rate slows, breathing is very shallow, the whole bit.  After perhaps 15 minutes with no further activity, the animal's body knows that the coast is likely clear, so it wakes up and walks away. (Thank you, aaanimalcontrol.com .)

Now Alyssa thinks the opossum in question is going to gather up all his friends and attack us during one of our evening dog walks. I assured her no, the opossums run away when you open the door, much like the Monty Python knights running away from the Killer Rabbit. This particular opossum was just too slow to outrun Excalibur!