With 503 records, the Virginia opossum is the fourth-most-reported mammal in Mississippi’s atlas, mapped across 59 counties from Lamar and Jackson on the southern tier to DeSoto on the Tennessee line. Holly Springs National Forest leads the named sites, and records from Graveline Bay and Davis Bayou coastal reserves show the species working even the marsh fringe.
North America’s only marsupial
Everything about an opossum is unusual by local standards. Females carry newborns the size of jellybeans into a fur-lined pouch, where up to thirteen can find a teat, and later haul the whole litter on their backs. The tail is prehensile, the hind feet have opposable thumbs, and the famous death-feigning collapse is an involuntary, catatonic response rather than an act. The diet is just as flexible: insects, carrion, fruit, eggs, pet food, and garbage all qualify. That generalism lets opossums live nearly anywhere in Mississippi that offers cover, water, and something edible, from wooded hills to city alleys.
Why autumn dominates
Opossums do not hibernate, and they pay for it. Thin fur and naked ears, feet, and tails make winter their hardest season, so they feed heavily through fall. Mississippi reports climb from October through December, when the year’s young are fully independent and every opossum in the state is packing on fat against the cold months ahead.
Status in Mississippi
NatureServe ranks the Virginia opossum S5, Secure, in Mississippi, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
