Possums and Opossums

Many visitors to our blog have noted that the picture we posted of the possum raiding the Christmas party buffet bears little resemblance to the marsupial seen crossing the road in the U.S. The Virginia opossum (North America’s only marsupial) was introduced to New Zealand (heaven only knows why), but for whatever reason it hasn’t made a pest of itself. We have yet to see a Virginia opossum here, dead or alive.

The common brushtail possum from Australia is the possum we see all over New Zealand. In spite of shared colloquial names, the Virginia opossum and Australian possum are not very closely related but are distant relatives (they are both marsupials, but they are in different Orders). There are many other species in South America, Australia, New Guinea, and Sulawesi that all share the common name (o)possum.

The brushtail possum has positively flourished in New Zealand after being introduced to establish a fur trade. The other night when we were returning home from our attempts to catch bats, we saw 9 on the road in our 15 minute drive! They’re much cuter than the Virginia opossum, but so destructive!

Carrie

P.S. If you want to read more about marsupials or possums, Wikipedia has a lot of good information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possum