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An opossum "porch pirate" has been captured on video in Texas stealing a 15-year-old's box of birthday cookies from the front door of his family’s home. The incident on Jan. 26 happened after the "gift came a little late in the evening when the fam was probably out celebrating, so it went unnoticed into the night… which set up a seemingly impossumable theft," the Southlake Department of Public Safety says. Video released by authorities shows an opossum wandering up to the entrance of the residence and then dragging away the box of treats after removing a blue birthday balloon attached...

Orangutan launches possum out of enclosure at zoo — as horrified visitors scream

What is the core function of a healthy adaptive brain? This researcher says its function is not merely to sort the input of our senses, but to create predictive models based on the cumulative weight of that input. This hypothesis strikes me as rather obvious and thus not entirely insightful. Though that’s plainly not an opinion shared by many, who believe an orderly brain is one that disregards its own predicted models in favor of those espoused by the Huffington Post. Here’s how the article described the function of this seemingly tertiary organ. The main purpose of the brain, as...

After a dog killed the mother opossum, the babies were adopted by another dog...

I've got an opossum who's hanging out in my ducts and walls. I was thinking of getting a trap and catching him (or her, I don't want little possums to raise!) and letting him out in a field far away from me. Anyone have any experience with possums in the house?

An opossum was found in California on Friday after being shot in the head and torso with what appeared to be crossbow arrows. Riverside County Department of Animal Services were amazed by the opossum's survival after it was found trying to remove the arrows near an intersection in the city's La Sierra neighborhood. [snip] The opossum survived the surgery and is now recovering at the animal hospital. [snip] The city's department of animal services has began an animal cruelty investigation into the incident.

Early morning commuters had a furry surprise on their trip into Manhattan last week. Riders on a Manhattan-bound D train had to evacuate the car at around 4:30 a.m. on Friday morning after someone spotted the adorable — yet possibly dangerous — opossum taking a free ride, an MTA spokesman confirmed. The incident was first reported by the New York Times. The four-legged creature reportedly boarded the train at Coney Island in Brooklyn. The train was first stopped at West Fourth Street, where police officers came on with gloves to try to get the opossum out. When that didn't work,...

LEIPZIG, Germany - (Newscore) Heidi, a cross-eyed opossum who became an internet sensation in Germany, winning three times more Facebook admirers than Chancellor Angela Merkel, is dead, her zoo said Wednesday. "The cross-eyed opossum Heidi has closed her eyes for ever," said the zoo in Leipzig, eastern Germany.

A new addition to the Leipzig Zoo has yet to be seen by the public, but that hasn't stopped her from becoming a star. Heidi, a young cross-eyed opossum, is shaping up to be the most popular furry critter in Germany since Knut the celebrity polar bear. She won't be visible to the public until July, but a cross-eyed opossum has turned into Germany's new media darling. Two-and-a-half-year-old Heidi has even inspired a YouTube hit, her own high-end stuffed animal, and has more than 49,000 friends on Facebook, and counting. "It really is surprising how famous and loved she is...

New Years Eve Lowering of the Opossum This year's festivities start at 10 PM. This is a non-alcoholic family event Pre-show warm up provided by the Barker Bros. at 8:45 PM "...We bring the possum to start the event and then the blessing and then we bring out the queens of the last ten years and show them off...and the church singing of songs and then the drop." Clay

In a bizarre attempt to outwit Mother Nature, city officials introduced beady-eyed opossums in Brooklyn years ago to scarf down rats running amok in the borough, according to local officials. Surprise: Operation opossum didn't work. Not only do wily rats continue to thrive, but the opossums have become their own epidemic, with bands of the conniving creatures sauntering through yards, plundering garbage cans and noshing on fruit trees.

PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. (AP) - Police say they charged a Pennsylvania man with public drunkenness after he was seen trying to resuscitate a long-dead opossum along a highway. State police Trooper Jamie Levier says several witnesses saw 55-year-old Donald Wolfe, of Brookville, near the animal Thursday along Route 36 in Oliver Township, about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. The trooper says one person saw Wolfe kneeling before the animal and gesturing as though he were conducting a seance. He says another saw Wolfe attempting to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Levier says the animal already had been dead a while.

A Vernon Hill man was found guilty Monday of animal cruelty after he stomped an opossum to death while on a June 20 ride-along with a Danville police officer. Evan Bryce Schuler, 23, appealed the judge’s decision, and his case will now move to circuit court.

Very funny take on the Messiah's latest audacities.

Like the man says, he insists on the suppression of ego; he just didn’t realize it might come off as egotistical to debut his very own presidential seal until his friends and allies in the media politely informed him of it. And so under the bus it goes, assuming there’s any room left under there with Wright, Pfleger, Rezko and who knows who else crowded in. I’ve had my fun with the Obama campaign’s seal, and now that fun ends. I’m told that Obama recognizes that it was a silly mistake, that the universal reaction at Wacker and Michigan was,...

(12-17) 21:46 PST JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Researchers in a remote Indonesian jungle have discovered a giant rat that is about five times the size of a typical city rat and a tiny possum, scientists said Monday. Unearthing new species of mammals in the 21st century is considered very rare. The discoveries by a team of American and Indonesian scientists are being studied further to confirm their status. The animals were found in the Foja mountains rainforest in eastern Papua province in a June expedition, said U.S.-based Conservation International, which organized the trip in the Southeast Asian nation along with...

(12-22) 19:23 PST ENGLEWOOD, Pa. (AP) -- Mary Kathleen O'Connor, 16, doing some studying for school about 6 a.m. Tuesday, said she was the first to be startled by an apparent Christmas tree stowaway. "I'm looking at the tree and the angel just pops off," she said. "And a second later, this head just popped up. The eyes were, like, glowing. I was thinking, 'Oh my God!' And I screamed." Other family members came running. "We looked at it and I thought it might have been a fake," said her father, Michael O'Connor, a Frackville attorney. "But then it moved...

HONOLULU - A postal worker discovered a 15-pound opossum moving around inside a trash bin at Honolulu International Airport, the second such animal found at the airport in the past three months, state agriculture officials said. "We're not sure how it got in the trash bin," said Janelle Saneishi, spokeswoman for the state Department of Agriculture. "It is in an offloading area for surface mail. It's possible it came in on a container and somehow found its way to the trash bin." A marsupial native to the mainland, opossums are distinctive for their long, rat-like, prehensile tails which allows them...

With all the opuses (opii?) around here lately, maybe it's best to just see who is still here.

Heard Of The City Mouse? Try Bigger & Far Uglier By: Nora Krug - www.nytimes.com January 2004 New York - What was that furry creature parked on a ledge at 135 East 35th Street? A big rat? A cat? A small bear? For nearly eight hours, a quiet corner in Murray Hill was transformed into a kind of temporary zoo, as passers-by stopped to gawk and guess the identity of the long-snouted cat-size animal that paced along a narrow stone ledge about nine feet over a brownstone garden, sniffing, shaking and yawning. "I was thinking it was a hedgehog, because...