Virginia opossums show up in 2,113 New York records, and the geography tells you this is a southern animal living near the northern edge of its range. Ulster County leads the list, but the deepest concentrations sit downstate: Westchester, Kings, Suffolk, Nassau, New York, and Queens, the mildest, most settled corner of the state, plus the length of Long Island.
North America’s only marsupial
An opossum raises its young in a pouch, carries them on its back once they outgrow it, and climbs with a grasping tail and a thumb-like hind toe. It eats nearly anything: insects, fruit, carrion, pet food left outdoors. Its famous death-feigning, going limp and unresponsive when cornered, is an involuntary response rather than a performance. Nocturnal and slow-moving, it is most often met crossing a road or waddling a fence line after dark.
Cold sets the boundary
Sightings run year-round and peak in May, when females travel with growing young and nights turn mild. Opossums do not hibernate, but their bare ears and tail tips take frostbite badly, and deep snow or a long hard freeze keeps them denned for days at a time. That vulnerability fits the map’s lean toward the milder downstate counties and away from the Adirondack high country.
Status in New York
NatureServe ranks the Virginia opossum S5, Secure, in New York, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
