So Cuddly

[Doug L]

Love the detail in #2. Is the eye colour just major red-eye? If so, I guess it's not surprising for night critters having extremely dilated pupils.

[Mad Aussie]

Thanks Doug! No red eye there ... Aussie native animals tend to have reddish eyes.

[Hillbillygirl]

Nice captures, and they do look much cuter than our giant rat-like possum we have here.

[Mad Aussie]

Nice captures, and they do look much cuter than our giant rat-like possum we have here.

O I C ... yours is a bit different! I'll have to go google that now

[Mad Aussie]

After a quick google I now understand why North Americans don't think of 'Possums' as cute. It's because our native Aussie Possum is NOT the thing as the American Opossum!

Here's an excerpt from an Aussie website explaining the difference ...

The American possums are actually called opossums, scientific name, Didelphimorphia. But for some reason, they are more commonly referred to as possums, just like our native Australian species.

But our Australian possums are (scientific name) Phalangeridae. Both are marsupials, but that’s about it. Other than that, they are not really related at all. But I wasn’t the only one who was fooled by all this; there are still plenty of websites out there that claim possums and opossums are the same. They are not.

It seems that all the confusion was started by Capt Cook’s botanist, Sir Joseph Banks, who named the Australian animal a possum because it “looked like” the American opossum. Luckily, he didn’t travel north, otherwise our crocodiles would be called alligators.

The big difference though, for me, and you will not find this information in too many encyclopaedias or wildlife books, is that the American possum has pointy teeth and looks scary and the Australian possum is a real cutie.