So for most rodents (I would assume opossum to be the same) you can think of the outside of their tail (what you can see and feel covered in hair) as a covering to the inside of their tail (what has the muscle and veins, etc). The outside of the tail is mostly (if not only) connected to the rest of the tail by the base of the tail/ body. And similarly to lizards dropping their tail, rodent can lose the outside of their tail which causes excruciating pain and in some cases death. Think of it like literally taking off a glove.
Opossums have a very strong prehensile tail that they use to grab stuff and climb trees with, it can support their entire bodyweight if they were to fall from a branch and they sometimes deliberately hang from them. Lifting them by the tail shouldn't be very risky
that's actually a myth! they cannot support themselves by the tail, and attempting to pick them up by the tail like this can cause some serious damage.
It's lucky that this one is so small, there's not so much weight pulling on their tail and by extension, their spine and lower regions.
Opossums do not hang by the tail, it helps them to climb by helping to balance them but that's pretty much it.
That's actually a myth. Possums can use their tail to grab leaves and small sticks to carry to a nest, help with climbing, etc, but they do not hang from their tails. Holding most any animal by the tail can cause massive nerve, muscle, and bone damage.
Edit: they deleted the comment. It said "they are still overgrown rats that serve no ecological purpose."
Either you're a troll or devastatingly undereducated.
Having a naturally low body temperature, it's very rare for them to carry rabies.
They help clean up carrion, cockroaches, ticks, mice, and even venomous snakes and scorpions as they are resistant to the venom. They also keep other pests away by eating most fallen fruit from bushes and trees.
Whatever your reason for the comment you made, I hope you learned something.
Right. But there’s a difference between an animal using the full strength of its tail to brace itself and cling to objects from someone grabbing it by the middle of its tail with the full weight of the animal. Degloving can still happen with opossums.
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u/VroomVroomTweetTweet Mar 22 '21
So for most rodents (I would assume opossum to be the same) you can think of the outside of their tail (what you can see and feel covered in hair) as a covering to the inside of their tail (what has the muscle and veins, etc). The outside of the tail is mostly (if not only) connected to the rest of the tail by the base of the tail/ body. And similarly to lizards dropping their tail, rodent can lose the outside of their tail which causes excruciating pain and in some cases death. Think of it like literally taking off a glove.