We have been feeding a feral cat for many years (name:Your Cat).
We have found that if the bowl is not empty in the evening (cats are picky)
then we have a quiet visitor to clean the dish. It is an opossum.
Being an aging PIP (previously important person) I have time to look up UBI's (useless bits of information)
which are sometimes of interest.
The Opossum
According to Virginia historian John Smith, the opossum "hath a head like a Swine, a tail like a Rat, and is of the bigness of a Cat". Had he looked closer he would have found that it also has opposing thumbs, fifty teeth( more than any other land mammal except for the giant armadillo) and if female, thirteen nipples which are arranged like a clock face with 12 in a circle and one in the middle. The nipples are hidden inside a pouch since the opossum is the only marsupial native to North America.
But most of all the possum is famous for 'playing possum'. A possum that is playing possum keels over to one side, its tongue hanging out, its eyes open and unblinking. Saliva drips from its mouth while its other end drips urine and feces, together with a putrescent green goop. Its body temperature and heart rate drop, its breathing becomes almost imperceptible, and its tongue turns blue. If you nudge it or step on its tail it does not respond.
Our possum does not play dead but on the first sign from us turns and waddles away, only to return later to clean the cat food out of the bowl.
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