North America has only one marsupial – albeit in a variety of species. The American marsupial is the opossum, of course, and I have no doubt that you already knew that. Among the critters that have figured out how to coexist with people in urban and suburban environments are possums, raccoons, foxes, armadillos, bobcats, and a host of reptiles, amphibians, birds, and insects.
In rural areas, many other critters live in proximity to humans, of course. Unfortunately, where livestock and wild critters come into contact with one another and there is predator-prey conflict, it is the predatory wildlife that suffers – wolves, coyotes, tigers, lions, and other species in decline as a result of the competition for habitat. Sigh.
Tonight, our outdoor video cameras recorded a possum crossing our deck. It happens nightly. Most of the aforementioned suburban critters visit us most days and evenings, but I have set the cameras to operate only during the night hours. Each critter has a routine route that it takes each day/night in search of sustenance. This evening, the cameras captured this possum – Didelphis virginiana.
Our cats have a toy given to them by one of our family members years ago. We call this toy possum because it is a stuffed animal toy meant to represent a possum. The cats love to carry it around, toss it in the air, and generally pursue it as a prey item or at times as an offspring (a kitten). We often find possum in the water or kibble bowls where a cat has taken it to eat or drink.
Truth be told, both cats and opossums are conflict averse and typically give one another a wide berth. Theirs is a live and let live ethos. I admire this in the interactions of diverse species. We could learn something from them, I think.
This brings me back to medicine, of course. It is often where many of my musings either begin or end. Marsupialization is a surgical technique that is used to allow a lesion to drain. Most often such lesions are abscesses, but there are other lesions such as deranged or injured glands that must be allowed to weep/drain until they can heal – exocrine glands such as the salivary glands, the pancreas, and others.
In 1979, when I was a senior medical student about to begin an elective in Infectious Diseases, my parents were victims in a home invasion. When this violation of personal privacy was over, my father had suffered a gunshot injury that left him with a ruptured spleen, a punctured left lung, and a penetrating pancreatic injury. He was exsanguinating from internal injuries. Responding to my mother’s call, I arrived at the crime scene after the damage had been done. It was a horror show.
My father survived his injuries only to die a couple of decades later from Hepatitis C cirrhosis that he contracted from the life-saving transfusions that he received in the surgical suite. I have no doubt that he was grateful for the additional twenty years of life that his surgeons gave him. That day, his pancreatic injury had been treated with the placement of a pancreatic drain and the marsupialization of the penetrating injury.
Thank you, possums, wombats, koalas, and all the other marsupial species whose biology we have mimicked in our surgical therapies to save lives that would have otherwise been lost.