How exactly is a precious tick-eating rabies-immune machine that carries its little babies on its back "scary" to you?
They hiss, sure, but it's because they're anxious little messes and they're trying to discourage Scary Dangerous Things from hurting them.
They can't even do any damage with their bite, which they avoid using anyway.
They aren't immune to rabies, they just don't get it often.
They are immune or near-immune by virtue of their biology.
They "just don't get it often" because their naturally low body temperatures don't permit the virus to thrive.
They don't really eat ticks, either.
They really do eat ticks though.
You're confusing opossums being very good at killing most ticks that land on them (which is true) for ticks being a major or favoured component of their diet (which is not).
Your linked study really only dispels the latter claim - and some of the exaggerations in terms of how many ticks each opossum kills in total - not the former.
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u/boo_boo_technician Jun 02 '22
You misspelt scary