As the local “weird possum girl”, they are very intelligent! They shouldn’t be!
See, opossum have smooth brains. This isn’t normally linked to a high intelligence. Yet, they can remember if a food is toxic for up to two weeks after ingesting it, can learn and remember how to operate different sliding locks, and can solve simple puzzles with the right motivation(food)!
They can also form bonds, remembering people they like and dislike. Which is kinda funny to think about, because their babies spend a period of time riding around on moms back before they’re big enough to waddle off on their own. If one falls off, she may very well trundle off, leaving the little one behind, who may hitch a ride on a totally different jill that happens to walk by.
goodness how i wish there was a weird possum girl in my locality
i would buy her lunch
not to eat with her as some creepy implied commitment to a date but because free food is an appropriate gift for opossum enthusiasts and I am just as happy for her to enjoy it without me if she so chooses.
(but to be fair i would prefer if she’d join me so i can listen to her talk about opossum facts)
I’d recommend something besides lunch for that, or at least have a strong stomach.
You’ll eventually hit the gross facts, and the little guys can get gross. Still absolutely adorable scavengers who play a key part in the decay cycle, but gross.
I’ve a strong stomach, and insatiable curiosity.
What kind of gross? Like rabbits eating their own first-pass poo?
(My RN mother used to watch graphic surgical shows during dinner so almost nothing really bothers me…. Except spelunkers getting stuck in caves. Holy fuck does that bother me and I’ll never be in a cave, so very illogical phobia)
Two weeks doesn’t seem like all that long before forgetting that some food was toxic lol
Oppossoms are better than merely smart. They eat HELLA PEST INSECTS!
now, Geese…
Geese are fiercely protective of their families and flocks and are amazing at guarding territory; they cannot be bribed or ingratiated. In brazil, a prison has provided a habitat for geese around the facility between the inner fence and the outer wall which has been surprisingly effective at discouraged escape attempts.
Can’t be bribed? What if you could get a clutch of goose eggs to imprint on you? Then you’d be part of the family and invincible with your goose army! You could go goose-stepping across the continent!
Let’s make a deal:
You go ahead and try to get close enough to a clutch of goose eggs that you can incubate them to hatching;
I’ll point and laugh as their parents and all the other geese in the entire flock swarm you in a solid frenzied wall of honking, hissing, biting, bludgeoning, implacable white-hot incandescent fury.
You are proposing to fuck with a force of nature, my friend. I can’t stop you. But they can. X3
Since they’re just outside your home, you make a hole in the wall and build a nest box inside it. Eggs get laid in there. When hatching day nears, you toss food over the wall to tempt mom off the nest for a minute. As soon as she steps away, you slam down a portcullis and take over childcare on your side of the wall. Later you and your goose tribe raise the portcullis and march forth together.
Of course, it could fail disastrously.
I used to work at a MSFT facility whose parking garage was built in a reconfigured wetlands.
The geese would just hang out in the parking garage. They would not move for cars, people, anything, and would attack you as you walk by them.
To my knowledge, a decade later, this problem still exists.
and are amazing at guarding territory
My favorite game is Untitled Goose Game.
Nothing comes close to making my children laugh as much as that game. I love when they play it.
No way. Maybe I should play it then. I thought it was a joke game that would only be fun for a few minutes.
Actually owls are really stupid. Like surprisingly stupid
I went to a falconry centre a while back and the guy had an owl that could fly perfectly well, but it’d just run around on its stumpy little legs instead. Nowhere near the smarts of the kestrel that pissed off for several hours instead of participating in the falconry show.
Let me ask you this, do you run all the time? You can do that and It’s faster, but why’d you choose to walk slowly most of the time?
If human can fly, I doubt we would do that all the time as it’s way more energy intensive and less durable.
I think those owls are up to something.
I’m a falconer. Basically no one uses owls for falconry because they have poor generalization intelligence. They have a really hard time transferring knowledge from one situation to another. So you get them flying to you inside and they are nailing it, then you move outside and it has no idea what to do. Every new situation needs to be trained. They are fine for shows and stuff when they are doing the same thing over and over again but constantly putting them in new situations like hunting would do is a recipe for disaster. A “lot”(maybe a dozen a year in US lol) of falconers try to use owls but very few are successful with them.
Squirrels aren’t just good climbers, squirrels are professional circus performers who are constantly putting on free shows for everybody.
Squirrels are hilarious, they don’t get enough credit.
My neighborhood squirrel hung upsidedown on our bird feeder holding the top with his feet while he ninja’d seeds out of the feeder. I was more impressed than anything.
I bet he drinks Carling Black Label.
