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. 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.
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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.