The Virginia opossum, North America’s only marsupial, appears in 1103 Arkansas records, densest in Sebastian County and the Arkansas River valley around Pope County, with a broad scatter from Washington County in the northwest to Greene County on the Missouri line. It is as much at home in the Delta’s bottomland woods as in town, and the record spans both.
A pouch, a tail, and a talent for survival
Opossum young are born tiny and finish growing in the mother’s pouch, then ride her back once they outgrow it. The prehensile tail and opposable hind thumb make the opossum a capable climber, and the famous death-feint, going limp with tongue lolling, is a genuine involuntary response rather than an act. Its appetite is famously broad, covering insects, carrion, fruit, eggs, and ticks, which it grooms off its own fur by the thousand. Records at Pinnacle Mountain State Park and Mount Nebo State Park sit beside the bottomlands of White River and Cache River national wildlife refuges.
Busiest in the fall
Reports crest from September through November, when the year’s second litters are grown and young opossums wander widely in search of territory, many of them crossing roads at night. The animal stays active through winter, though its naked ears and tail take frostbite in hard freezes.
Status in Arkansas
NatureServe ranks the Virginia opossum S5, Secure, and the species is native to Arkansas. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous in the state.
Full species profile
