All Thumbs, No Hands

Discover fascinating facts about the North American opossum, including its unique thumbs, behavior, and ecological role. Learn how this remarkable marsupial adapts to urban environments and why it’s vital for our ecosystem.

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Opossum Society of the United States

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Podcast Music: Positive Carefree Folk Pop
Artist: Burgberg
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Alright, so here's a bit of a twist for you. Name a mammal that does not have hands, but does have thumbs. While you think about it, we'll roll that opening. I'm Rick Schwartz, educator, public speaker, and all-around curious guy. Over the years, my curiosity and experiences, along with the many people I have worked with, revealed to me we all have a desire to feel connected to the natural world. You're listening to Animals, Nature, and You, a podcast that explores a connection between animals, nature, and humans. A podcast that celebrates learning more, following our curiosity, and reconnecting with the natural world. Welcome to another 10-minute Tuesday here on Animals, Nature, and You. And as you know, I'm your host, Rick Schwartz, and I'm really glad you're here. But before we get into the animal that has thumbs but no hands, I do want to give you a quick update here on the podcast. Now, this update applies to those who listen on podcast players or the web browser version, which you can find that link in my my Link tree or in my bio, wherever you might be catching this. If it's on YouTube, sorry, this new this new feature almost said adaptation, because animals, it's an adaptation, right? This new feature is not available on YouTube at this time. What it is, it's a simple way to get in touch with me. If you go to the episode description, uh, should be on any of the episodes now, you'll see a button or a link for send fan mail. And from that button, then you have the option to send a text or send a voicemail. Now, don't worry, I don't see your number. It goes through the distribute distribution group that does my podcast distributing. So it's all safe and everything like that. But I, you know, a lot of us we've been in touch through social media, and I appreciate that tremendously. And we can keep up that that level of communication there. But I do recognize sometimes people want to take a break from social media, or they have actually stopped doing social media altogether, or perhaps you're only on one particular social media platform and not another. And I can totally appreciate that. This is just another way for us to stay in touch, whether you have a follow-up question, perhaps about a species we talked about, or maybe you know more or something more, like a new development's come out, or there's new a new research paper on something that we discussed a few episodes back. Any of that. It's an opportunity for us to just stay in touch and I can respond, but again, I don't I don't see a number of goes through the system, so it's nice and safe. So with that new update, take advantage of it if you want, but you don't have to. Now, what animal has thumbs but no hands? Well, let's first look into what is the actual anatomical definition of a hand. It must be at the forelimb or end of the arm of this animal and have opposable thumbs. So if you're not watching on YouTube, I'm just bringing my thumbs across my fingers to show how they oppose. A thumb is different than fingers. So raccoons are a great example where people call their very dexterous front feet hands because they're grabbing, holding on, and manipulating so well, but there's no true opposable thumb on the raccoon's front foot, so therefore it's not a hand. So now, who has thumbs but no hands? It's the North American or Virginian opossum. The opossum has thumbs on its feet. So like, well, wait a minute, wouldn't you just call those hands on the back legs? Well, here's a fun fact for you as well. When we're talking about anatomy, if it is on the back legs, the four the not the forelimbs, but the back legs at the end there, thumb or no thumb, it's considered a foot. Now a foot with a thumb is considered a specialized foot. So it's quite simple like that. So let's talk a little bit about this Virginian or North American opossum. Right off the bat, they are the only marsupial of North America. Marsupial meaning that they are raised in a pouch doesn't mean they all have a pouch. That's also a little myth sometimes that comes up. Males do not have pouches, only the females do. So being a marsupial best describes the fact that they were raised in a pouch. When they're born, mom can have several, ten or more or less, and they're about the size of a piece of puffed rice. I've seen pictures of, I think, a three-day old next to a dime, so it kind of gives you an idea how small they are. They will go from the birth canal into the pouch and they'll attach to a teeth to nurse there, like all marsupials do, and spend the first few months in the pouch. As they grow and get too big, they start writing on mom's back with those very grippy front feet and those opposable thumbs in the back feet. And here's the thing. They only live about three well, it depends on what you look up. Anywhere from two to three years in the wild, three to four years in in managed care or zoo care. Either way, they don't live very long, so they do grow pretty fast. So they're away from mom by month four or five, doing their own thing. And when they're smaller, they do kind of look a bit like a rat, a little naked tail and everything else. But here's the fun thing, even as they get older, that naked tail, it is a prehensile or grasping tail. So although the cartoons tend to depict a mom and babies all hanging on a branch by that tail, they don't just hang around. Youngsters can hold their whole body weight usually with that tail, but not for a very long time. And adults, a full-grown adult, is not going to hold their whole body weight with that unless there's an emergency happening and they're about to fall. The prehensile tail, along with the opposable thumbs in the back feet and the very dexterous front feet, allow them to be very exceptional climbers. In fact, the process of evolution for them really spent uh they spent a lot of time up in the trees and climbing around. Now, we bring them into, well, or they followed us into our urban lifestyles, living in the cities, living in the rural areas and in suburban areas, anywhere humans are, opossums have figured out how to live with us quite well. That's because they're omnivorous, with fifty teeth in their mouth, which is I believe the most of any land mammal uh alive today, right now on the planet, they have the ability to eat just about anything. And we as humans tend not to eat everything we have, purchased, or grown, and we throw it away. Opsums have figured out that us humans are a great source of food, and we tend to leave food and water out for our pets, so therefore, bonus, right? Here's the other thing now. When we look at the fact that they do take advantage of human behavior to exploit the lifestyle of the urban and suburban world, they also uh still do what they were, of course, naturally evolved to do. They eat a wide variety of things, whether it's snails, grubs, bugs, and other insects, they can eat rattlesnakes and other small snakes, amphibians, uh fruits, vegetation, all sorts of stuff. So let's jump into real quick for my friends here in North America. If you do happen to come across an opossum, leave it be. If you think it's dead, leave it be. Unless it's on the side of a road, then it it might actually have been hit by a car. See, here's the thing about opossum. We we've heard the term play possum, and I went real quick too. They are not possum. There is a species, there's a group, a whole bunch of animals called possums. These are opossums with an O. Our English language, especially here in America, we tend to create shortened versions of words or mix words together. They become called they've become called. Speaking of the English language, I don't have much of a grasp of that. We have started to call them possums, but they are opossums. Nonetheless, when they get scared, we've heard the term playing possum. It's not a conscious choice. They don't go, oh, this guy's gonna he's gonna totally walk away if I pretend I'm dead. When you get scared, and this trust me, this this all ties together. Let's say you're driving along and you have a near-miss collision, you don't you don't actually crash, but near miss, you get that adrenaline. Someone startles you, something surprises you, you get that rush of adrenaline, your heart rate goes up, you might get clammy hands, dry mouth, you're short of breath. These are all symptoms involuntary of your body going into survival mode, the fight or flight mode. That adrenaline gets released, and all these chemicals then have these different reactions on your systems so you can survive. For opossums, it's pretty much the same thing. Something startles them, scares them, they feel threatened. The hormones and chemicals that get released in their system knock them out. It is an involuntary coma, as it's called by some scientists, and what they actually do is just a full-on pass out, can last anywhere from two to four hours, and they look dead. They get rigid, their lips curl up, their eyes will roll back, there's a bit of a stink about them. It is really crazy how this happens. And so there have been reports of people saying, hey, animal control, come pick up this dead opossum that's in my yard. Animal control shows up and it's gone. Because by the in that time of the call being made and animal control showing up, the opossum comes out of this little involuntary coma and walks away. So it's interesting how that little survival mode works for them, but it seems to work. If you do come across them, they'll leave them be. If they're in your garage, you can usually leave the door open and they'll walk out on their own. If they don't, you can get one of those have a heart traps that just captures them and you can move them outside. They're good for the environment. They really are. With all they do for keeping pests down in our area, keeping the area clean as well, they're not going to be around if there's no food source. So think about it. If they're around, that means there are things for them to eat that you don't want around, anyways. So just leave them be. There are also really good websites available. If you do come across one, you think it's injured, or a baby that maybe is away from mom too soon. Some people are brave enough to go ahead and approach an opossum that looks like it was hit by a car to check the pouch to see if there's babies in there. Make sure if you're going to do this, you'd have a plan of what you're going to do with them. They require special care. Please reach out to your local wildlife rehabilitation facility, or there's a website I'll link down below just to give you a heads up. It's the opossum Society of the United States, if you are here in the U.S., which I suppose Canada and Mexico, there's opossums there too. So if you're in the US, that's that website will be down below. One other cool fact can I share with you about opossums? I've worked with them pretty much my whole career, and they are ridiculously cute. If you see them in your garden, your yard, your garage, they startle you, they they run away or they hiss. It doesn't seem very cute at that time, especially because we're now dealing with a startle response. If you get the chance to see one up close in a zoo or in an animal ambassador type of environment, I highly recommend you take a chance. They're cute. They're really cute. You know, as cute as they are, obviously they're not going to be good pets by any means. They're nocturnal by nature. I have enough to deal with with my house cat wanting to play at two in the morning. I don't need a no possum also. They they are not good pets, so don't try that. But do if you ever come across one that needs help or you find one that's sick or injured, go ahead and reach out to your local wildlife rehab. You can usually type into Google wildlife rehabilitation and then your zip code, and somebody, something nearby will come up. If there isn't one, animal control is your next option. And if they say, well, no, we don't deal with a possum, you might be able to ask them, well, who in our area does there might be an opossum rescue or something like that? But again, really important species to have around. Pretty interesting too. Oh, and last fun fact for you some people are like, I don't I don't want them around my yard, I'd rather just kill it, get rid of it, because I don't want it to possibly give my pets a disease like rabies. Now it is possible they could have certain things they're carrying, but rabies is not one of them. They could be bit by a rabid animal, and the odds are ever in the favor of them not getting rabies because their body temperature is too low for rabies to properly survive in their system. It doesn't mean the chances are zero, but they're incredibly low. And again, if you are just going to leave them alone, let them be, they'll be fine. Not where I am now, but where I lived before, I used to have an opossum mom go back and forth across the fence about the same time every evening as she would go through the different yards checking for fruit from the fruit trees, and I'm sure people leaving food out for their pets. They are incredible animals and uh really, really good to have around. I know it's not as exciting and exotic as perhaps some of the other species we've talked about, but I figured it was a good one for 10 Minute Tuesday today because just last Thursday we talked to Alice, and Alice has her own podcast where I was a guest, and uh that was several years ago, and opossum was the topic of that visit on her podcast. So that made me think, you know what? It'd be fun to do a 10-minute Tuesday about opossums. So there you go, now you know. And we do have an animal here on the planet that does not have hands, but does have thumbs. And you know, anatomically speaking, there is a definition to what makes a hand versus what makes a foot, and even a foot with a thumb is still just a specialized foot, not a hand. So with that, we're gonna wrap this up. Again, if you would like to get in touch with me, go ahead and find on the audio version of this podcast. The send fan mail, you can connect there, or you can connect on Instagram. Animals Nature and You has its own Instagram, and then my account, zoologyrick.com, zoology rick on just about any social media that I'm on. You're feel free to get a hold of me there, get in touch there. With that, I think uh, gosh, we have the last bit of housekeeping. Of course, if you haven't already, start that process of not missing any episodes. You want to follow or subscribe, however, you can to this podcast to make sure you catch the next several episodes coming up. Every Thursday, we have interviews with awesome people doing awesome work, and then of course, every Tuesday, our 10 minute Tuesday. With that, we're gonna wrap this up. Have a good one, everybody.