Maryland’s record for the Virginia opossum runs to 1,085 occurrences spread across all 23 counties, and it leans hard toward the state’s suburban belt. Howard County alone accounts for 331, with Anne Arundel and Montgomery close behind, a map of backyards, woodlots, and stream corridors as much as wild country.
A generalist at home around people
An opossum eats nearly anything it comes across, from fruit, insects, and earthworms to small animals, carrion, and pet food left out overnight, and it dens wherever cover offers, hollow logs, brush piles, abandoned burrows, and the spaces under sheds and porches. That flexibility suits Maryland’s patchwork of farms and subdivisions, yet the species is just as present on deep-woods ground like Catoctin Mountain Park and along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park.
North America’s only marsupial
Females raise their young in a pouch, and once the litter outgrows it the youngsters ride along on their mother’s back while she forages. Newly independent young turn up in spring, which likely helps drive the April and May crest in Maryland’s reports. Opossums do not hibernate. They hole up through hard cold snaps and often carry frost-nipped ears and tails by late winter, but Maryland’s moderate winters let them stay active in every month of the year.
Status in Maryland
NatureServe ranks the Virginia opossum S5, Secure, in Maryland, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
