Rob's Ranch for Raconteurs

[David In Indy]

One of the many joys of having moved to New Zealand. No snakes and no deadly spiders. However, I cannot get use to treating possums as vermin. In Australia they could be a nuisance but protected and cute. Here they are hated and the ones I have seen seem to be bigger.

Those possums are so cute! I was driving home from a trip to Kroger the other night and I saw a possum wandering in the street with a soup can stuck on his head. I stopped and pulled the can off. He must have been rumaging through someone's trash. Poor little thing...

[underdown]

It sounds like the brown snakes in Australia aren't very nice! lol

We have Eastern Rattlesnakes here in Indiana. They are kind of a brown color, I guess. Tan and dark brown striped. They'll shake their tail and let you know before they bite you! I've almost stepped on one a few times.

Wow ! Your snakes are very considerate.
Do they still warn you if you step on them, or do they skip that part ?

[underdown]

Those possums are so cute! I was driving home from a trip to Kroger the other night and I saw a possum wandering in the street with a soup can stuck on his head. I stopped and pulled the can off. He must have been rumaging through someone's trash. Poor little thing...

You're such a kind person, David. 

... Say, I didn't know there were possums in the USA.   

[Mandy21]

We have possums here in Missouri too.  I live near a creek, and they'll just thump by in the middle of the night sometimes, and I hear them trudging along outside my bedroom window.  Never thought of them as cute, though.  I guess the Indy possums must outclass ours.   

[brianr]

Maybe you could use a possum chasing cat, Brian ?  At least he wouldn't get bitten (unless the possums are really big).
I'll post him over for free. 

No thanks. I will probably lose friends but I hate cats. Both my neighbours have 2 cats each and as the people who owned my house before me bred dogs, the cats have been having a free for all trying to establish territory in my back yard. I am researching ways of deterring them. In my Australian home I had lots of lizards and birds and I waged continual warfare on cats.
The poison of the red bellied black snake does not usually kill humans and they will usually slither away if you stamp up and down on the ground. However I preferred not to see them in my garden. On the other hand the Eastern brown snake is the 2nd most deadly land snake in the world (after the Taipan) and quite ferocious. A 16 yr old was killed in the suburbs of Sydney earlier this year.  You are advised to stay still as they react to movement (easier said than done). I never saw one in my garden but did occasionally while hiking. Your cat was lucky it attacked a red bellied black and not a brown.

[David In Indy]

We have possums here in Missouri too.  I live near a creek, and they'll just thump by in the middle of the night sometimes, and I hear them trudging along outside my bedroom window.  Never thought of them as cute, though.  I guess the Indy possums must outclass ours.   

Well, I think just about everything is cute Mandy! I realize a lot of people don't think they are cute though. We have really cute squirrels here. We have the reddish brown squirrels with the big bushy tails. Now, if you drive over to Cincinnati (about a 100 miles east of here) you won't see the brown squirrels. They are gray! And much smaller. I think ours are cuter.

Rob, I think possums live just about everywhere in the eastern part of the U.S. They might even have them in the western half. I'm not sure. But I'm wondering if our possums are the same as yours. They are marsupials though, the females have a pouch. So maybe they are the same. You must not have ever watched The Beverly Hillbillies. Granny is always talking about her "possum stew". lol

 

[David In Indy]

Possum:

[Brokeback_Dev]

I hate Florida opossums their tails are bare like a rat which grosses me out Yuk!   They're rodents and so are squirrels. Ours are the small grey ones David and their tails are not very bushy.  I think of them as "varmints" as Granny would say. Yuk.

[brianr]

Australian possum

[Mandy21]

Well, I think just about everything is cute Mandy! 

Dang, David, that's a pretty cool trick, thinking everything is cute.  Maybe you could head over to page 504 of the 'Jake Jake Jake!' thread, and let us know if you also think ostriches are cute.  If so, maybe scientists in the future could replicate your brain and heart and start inserting them in all human embryos.  What a wonderful world we would live in then.