Your favourite YouTube video?

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

To embed that video, insert the part after the "=" sign between the YouTube brackets. In this case,

[youtube]GlKL_EpnSp8[youtube]

Or just "go advanced" on the posting window and hit the Youtube button.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Or just "go advanced" on the posting window and hit the Youtube button.

But you still have to cut away everything up to and including the equals sign before selecting the remaining text and clicking the YouTube button!

[Kris777]

Amazing video

[ardeegee]

I would never make a moral judgment on an opossum.







I've had more encounters than I would care to count with possums of all sizes that have managed to get into the house (by various and sometimes mysterious means) and have to be caught (by the tail) and ejected when they go strolling casually across the room, paying little attention to any people in the room. They are never as calm as the one in the video, though.

http://i313.photobucket.com/albums/l.../nature/p1.jpg

[kindlekitten]

all I know is that there is something in possum urine that is apparently toxic to horses and as far as I am concerned, the only good possum is a dead one. possum piss on hay=very sick horse

[ardeegee]

poohbear_nc-- STAY AWAY FROM THIS VIDEO



Link

[poohbear_nc]

Thank you SO MUCH for the warning - my skin is already twitching from the title!

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

I've had more encounters than I would care to count with possums of all sizes that have managed to get into the house (by various and sometimes mysterious means) and have to be caught (by the tail) and ejected when they go strolling casually across the room, paying little attention to any people in the room. They are never as calm as the one in the video, though.

A friend gave me an opossum for a meal for the 17 foot long reticulated python I had at the time. What I didn't know was that many animals won't eat opossums, possibly because of the smell. Baby (the python) showed no interest in the possum, so I sent it out of that cage. Once out of Baby's Crib and into the rest of the garage, it hissed, bared it's teeth, and made threatening gestures. I watched it for a while, and it evidently came to the conclusion that I had no ill will toward it (outside of the initial attempt to feed it to the snake), and began to warm to me. After I sensed it had calmed down, I slowly extended my hand and started petting it. Once you look closely at these critters, you realize they're not all that ugly. In fact, after making eye contact, you begin to think they're rather cute. I opened the garage door so it could go out, but it seemed have taken a liking to the place, and didn't leave for several hours.

I didn't know that you were suppose to brush it's aura, though, so I probably screwed its chi all to hell.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

What I didn't know was that many animals won't eat opossums, possibly because of the smell.

They may seem too "alien" to animals (even snakes) used to dealing only with placental mammals. There are at least 125 million years between us. Opossii very rarely catch or carry rabies, for example, even though almost all placental mammals can. They aren't dirty animals, though-- they groom themselves almost as obsessively as a cat, though they lick and comb with their back feet, not their front. (The rabies factoid is from Google, the grooming one from personal observation.) Another observation-- and this might have been a quirk of the possum I was watching and not the species in general-- it blinked only one eye at a time, staggered over several seconds, so it always had one eye open.

Your anecdote reminds me of another encounter I had. I dug up an e-mail I wrote to someone about it afterward and am pasting it below:

I walk out onto my front porch tonight at around 9:30, and there on top of the railing (around chest height) sits an adult possum. So of course I do the sane thing any rational person would do and immediately pick it up. Take it by the tail, bring it in to show my grandmother ("yep, another one") who of course has seen me handling possums so often that it deserved and received no more reaction than if I had picked up a fallen leaf (one can get jaded to cat-sized holdouts from the Mesozoic hanging around your house quite easily.) Possum was trying to climb my clothes, so I took it back outside, sat it down, and it ran away.

The thing about possums is that they are dumb. So dumb that they seem to be incapable of making the mental connection between the fact that for some reason they are hanging in the air by their tail and the giant animal beside them. The typical reaction you get is not hostility, but an appearance of mild annoyance and confusion. They will try to climb anything in reach while you hold them, and if nothing is in reach, they climb themselves (at least the small ones, don't know if adult ones retain the flexibility.) They will bend upwards, grab the base of their own tail, and then climb it hand over hand. Then, when they reach the hand that is holding them, they just climb on top of your hand. No sign that they make the cognitive leap that would be made by a rat or just about anything else that if they bite this thing holding their tail, it might let go. I figure that, if I had let it, this possum would simply have climbed my clothes to my shoulder, possibly climbed my head, and never once realized that "biting" might have some utility.

I sometimes think about the possums that I've caught when they are small, then later catch medium ones, then larger ones, then adult ones-- I'm sure some of them are repeat customers. And it has been happening for possum generations. In local possum folklore, I must be the beast that goes bump in the night that possums see in their nightmares. Generations of possums warn their young that if they don't behave, then I will get them.

In fact, after making eye contact, you begin to think they're rather cute.

http://www.googlyfoogly.com/pictures/Cute-Possum.html

[happy_terd]

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

They may seem too "alien" to animals (even snakes) used to dealing only with placental mammals. There are at least 125 million years between us. Opossii very rarely catch or carry rabies, for example, even though almost all placental mammals can. They aren't dirty animals, though-- they groom themselves almost as obsessively as a cat, though they lick and comb with their back feet, not their front. (The rabies factoid is from Google, the grooming one from personal observation.) Another observation-- and this might have been a quirk of the possum I was watching and not the species in general-- it blinked only one eye at a time, staggered over several seconds, so it always had one eye open.

Your anecdote reminds me of another encounter I had. I dug up an e-mail I wrote to someone about it afterward and am pasting it below:

I walk out onto my front porch tonight at around 9:30, and there on top of the railing (around chest height) sits an adult possum. So of course I do the sane thing any rational person would do and immediately pick it up. Take it by the tail, bring it in to show my grandmother ("yep, another one") who of course has seen me handling possums so often that it deserved and received no more reaction than if I had picked up a fallen leaf (one can get jaded to cat-sized holdouts from the Mesozoic hanging around your house quite easily.) Possum was trying to climb my clothes, so I took it back outside, sat it down, and it ran away.

The thing about possums is that they are dumb. So dumb that they seem to be incapable of making the mental connection between the fact that for some reason they are hanging in the air by their tail and the giant animal beside them. The typical reaction you get is not hostility, but an appearance of mild annoyance and confusion. They will try to climb anything in reach while you hold them, and if nothing is in reach, they climb themselves (at least the small ones, don't know if adult ones retain the flexibility.) They will bend upwards, grab the base of their own tail, and then climb it hand over hand. Then, when they reach the hand that is holding them, they just climb on top of your hand. No sign that they make the cognitive leap that would be made by a rat or just about anything else that if they bite this thing holding their tail, it might let go. I figure that, if I had let it, this possum would simply have climbed my clothes to my shoulder, possibly climbed my head, and never once realized that "biting" might have some utility.

I sometimes think about the possums that I've caught when they are small, then later catch medium ones, then larger ones, then adult ones-- I'm sure some of them are repeat customers. And it has been happening for possum generations. In local possum folklore, I must be the beast that goes bump in the night that possums see in their nightmares. Generations of possums warn their young that if they don't behave, then I will get them.

http://www.googlyfoogly.com/pictures/Cute-Possum.html

in other words, the creators of "ICE AGE" were spot on with th opossum critters!

Originally Posted by happy_terd

I am SO not watching that!

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

...



I am SO not watching that!

It was a throw-away. Just a quick clip of a snake --- can barely even see the bump in it...

[happy_terd]

Am I allowed to post the video for last years MR ball?



Get your groove on poohbear.

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by happy_terd

Am I allowed to post the video for last years MR ball?



Get your groove on poohbear.

Finally - someone who actually dances worse than I do!

[Kris777]

funny ad: