Talk:Virginia Opossum

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RUIZ-PINA, Hugo A and CRUZ-REYES, Alejandro. The opossum Didelphis virginiana as a synanthropic reservoir of Trypanosoma cruzi in Dzidzilché, Yucatán, México. Mem. Inst. Oswaldo Cruz. [online]. July 2002, vol.97, no.5 [cited 18 May 2005], p.613-620. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0074-02762002000500003&lng=en&nrm=iso>. ISSN 0074-0276.

"It is often seen near towns, rummaging through garbage cans, or dead by the side of the road." Aw jeez, is this the best that can be said about the poor beasties? Jquarry 06:26, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

The Virginia Opossum female usually has 13 nipples, twelve arranged in a circle with an additional one in the middle. http://www.oaklandzoo.org/atoz/azopssum.html

"Though some humans are fond of these creatures, many consider them to be rather ugly. They are commonly encountered as road kill." Isn't this a rather subjective, opinionated statement, and why does it even need to be on there? Instead of stating that many humans find them "rather ugly", why not say "Though many humans mistakingly consider opossums to be rats, opossums in fact are not closely related to rodents at all, rarely transmit diseases to humans, and are surprisingly resistant to rabies". Could this subjective "ugly" factor (or mistaken rat/disease analogy) be a significant reason why so many of them are killed on the road? Shanoman 22:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)Shanoman

No mention of their ability to clmb trees either. There's one of the little guys up a tree in my yard right now. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.142.130.24 (talk • contribs).

[edit] teeth

I removed the statement "(the most among land mammals)that refered to its teeth, the numbat has 2 more teeth than the Virginia opossum. Zantaggerung 16:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)