Virginia opossums are North America’s only marsupial, carrying and nursing their tiny newborns in a pouch before the young ride on the mother’s back for weeks afterward. Nearly 16,000 Texas records trace the wooded Brazos and Trinity river corridors and Caddo National Grasslands, where trees, water, and farm and town edges give this opportunistic omnivore both cover and an easy meal.
Records climb to an April peak, more than double the summer low, likely tied to breeding-season movement and young opossums dispersing from the pouch. This species famously “plays possum,” going limp and unresponsive when threatened rather than fighting or fleeing, an involuntary response rather than a conscious act, and NatureServe rates the population secure both in Texas and across its wider range.
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