Up until the past week or so, opossums were an animal with very little time in the spotlight.
Sure Walt Kelly’s comic strip “Pogo” provided satire of both the political and social varieties during the middle of the past century.
The opossum gets credit for being the only marsupial native to North America, however, it is likely the least adorable marsupial on the planet. Okay, I concede that a cancerous Tasmanian Devil is less adorable than an opossum.
There was that brief blip in 2011 when an opossum was blamed for an Aussie blackout and Heidi the cross-eyed marsupial became a sensation.
But the past couple of weeks have brought the opossum to the forefront. They’ve made the rounds of the Internet from two different locations. First there was the pic at the top of this page that went viral. The story attached to it said one of the varmints broke into a bakery and ate pastries until it couldn’t move. It was found lounging among the treats. The Just B Australia blog can’t find the original source of the photo though and has tried to track its course around the Internet.
While we’re still wondering about the pastry-eating possum, there’s no doubt about the source of the marsupial’s other recent claim to fame. Liberty Ski Resort in Emmitsburg, Pennsylvania introduces us to Ratatouille, the snowboarding opossum. And I’ll even admit that Ratatouille wearing a ski sweater is a lot cuter than the roadkill I drive past on a near daily basis.
