The answer to the question I never knew existed.

 

Have you ever seen a small rodent like animal playing dead and wondered “is that a possum or an opossum?” Neither have I, quite frankly I didn’t even know that there was such a thing as an opossum until we made our fourth comic book. Turns out those funny rodents that play dead are  opossums and the differences don’t end there.

 

Opossums	Possums
Habitat in colder climates like North America	Habitat in subtropics primarily Australia
Omnivorous	Mostly herbivorous, rarely omnivorous
Hairless tail functions as a fifth hand	Bushy tail helps to balance possum
Thumb-like toes on all feet	Thumb-like toes on back feet only
Play dead	Don’t play dead
Long faces with elongated snout	Flat, round faces
Lifespan of 2 to 4 years	Lifespan of 6 years
Gray or white fur	Tan to brown fur

 

 

This whole confusing situation started when a gentleman named Sir Joseph Banks saw the possum in Australia and assumed it was in the same immediate family as the opossum. Little did he know that the two species’ only similarity is that they’re both small rodent like marsupials.