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58-449: Thylophorops is an extinct genus of didelphine opossums from the Pliocene of South America . Compared to their close didelphine cousins like the living Philander and Didelphis (and like the still living Lutreolina ) opossums, Thylophorops displays specialization towards carnivory , and one species, T. lorenzinii , is the largest known opossum of all time, which could imply

116-576: A barrel with fresh or rotten fruit to attract opossums that would feed on the fruit or insects. In northern/central Mexico, opossums are known as tlacuache or tlacuatzin . Their tails are eaten as a folk remedy to improve fertility. In the Yucatán peninsula they are known in the Yucatec Mayan language as "och" and they are not considered part of the regular diet by Mayan people, but still considered edible in times of famine. Opossum oil (possum grease)

174-497: A consonant, for example *ki·šekat- "be day" + *-ki = *ki·šekaxki "when it is day." Note that Bloomfield here actually reconstructed this word as *ki·šekaθki , but evidence from other Algonquian languages has shown that the cluster should be reconstructed as *xk . When two vowels became contiguous, if one was a long vowel and one was short, the short vowel dropped: *naka·- "stop" + *-en "by hand" = *naka·ne·wa "s/he stops him/her by hand." If both were long, an epenthetic *y

232-486: A defense mechanism, allowing a rare reversal of an evolutionary arms race where the former prey has become the predator, whereas others have suggested it arose as a predatory adaptation given that it also occurs in other predatory mammals and does not occur in opossums that do not regularly eat other vertebrates. The fer-de-lance , one of the most venomous snakes in the New World , may have developed its highly potent venom as

290-635: A different order. The opossum is typically a nonaggressive animal and almost never carries the virus that causes rabies . The word opossum is derived from the Powhatan language and was first recorded between 1607 and 1611 by John Smith (as opassom ) and William Strachey (as aposoum ). Possum was first recorded in 1613. Both men encountered the language at the English settlement of Jamestown, Virginia , which Smith helped to found and where Strachey later served as its first secretary. Strachey's notes describe

348-586: A few sparassodont and phorusrhacid taxa like Thylacosmilus and Llallawavis , and it, as well as similar opossum species, evolved to fill the ecological blanks. A similar case is observed with the carnivorous armadillo Macroeuphractus , a product of this same era of faunal turn-overs. As mentioned above, there is evidence of T. chapadmalensis predating on contemporary caviomorphs and appropriating burrows, from them or other mammals such as armadillos . Didelphine Several; see text Opossums ( / ə ˈ p ɒ s ə m z / ) are members of

406-417: A few idiosyncratic cases, however, this rule did not operate, and instead the consonants were changed in various ways. For instance, the combination θ+p produced when the root *eθ- "thither, thus" was added to the final *-pahto· "run" simplified to *xp : *expahta·wa "s/he runs thither." One regular exception to the "connective i" rule was when the conjunct suffix *-ki was added to a verb stem ending in

464-598: A glottal stop phoneme is not otherwise reconstructed, given that Bloomfield's ⟨ʔ⟩ in clusters seems to represent the neutralization of *p and *k and its realization in Menominee and Cheyenne is a glottal stop, it probably was indeed phonetically [ʔ] . The cluster written ⟨Hm⟩ shows up as p or m in most of the daughter languages, but as hm in Munsee (for example, PA *wi·kiwa·Hmi "house" becomes Ojibwe wiigiwaam , Fox wîkiyâpi , and Munsee wíikwahm ). The first member of

522-493: A handful of irregular exceptions to this pattern, however. For example, the prefixes lost their vowels before several kinship terms, as in *ne- + *-o·hkomehsa = *no·hkomehsa "my grandmother." Several rules for internal sandhi in morpheme combinations can be reconstructed. The most basic was the insertion of a "connective i" between two consonants. For example, *po·n- "cease" + *-m "act by speech on an animate object" = *po·n i me·wa "s/he stops talking to him/her." In

580-451: A lateral within the historical period. The precise pronunciation of the phoneme written ⟨θ⟩ is unknown. It has merged with the reflex of *r in all Algonquian languages except for Cree and the Arapahoan languages . Leonard Bloomfield originally suggested that it could have been either an interdental fricative or a lateral fricative . One piece of evidence for the interdental fricative

638-666: A macropredatory role. Thylophorops is rather consistently recovered as a didelphine opossum, most often compared to and usually falling within the Didelphis , Philander and Lutreolina group. Within Thylophorops itself, there are three recognized species: Thylophorops species (as well as several other contemporary opossum genera) show a high degree of speciation towards carnivory compared to most living didelphines. Their premolar and molar teeth were proportionally larger than those of living opossums and their grinding facets imply

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696-677: A means to prey on or a defense mechanism against large opossums. Opossums are found in North, Central, and South America . The Virginia opossum lives in regions as far north as Canada and as far south as Central America, while other types of opossums only inhabit countries south of the United States. The Virginia opossum can often be found in wooded areas, though its habitat may vary widely. Opossums are generally found in areas like forests, shrubland, mangrove swamps, rainforests and eucalyptus forests. Opossums have been found moving northward. Until

754-488: A more dedicated shearing action; these have been interpreted as "omnivory leading towards carnivory" and as more specialized carnivory in posterior studies. There is evidence that T. chapadmalensis re-appropriated burrows from other digging mammals, as well as outright consuming them. Thylophorops species as a whole tended to be terrestrial rather than arboreal. Thylophorops lived at a time when South America's older predatory guilds were dismantling. It co-existed with only

812-502: A more recent epoch, the early Miocene (roughly 20 million years ago). The last common ancestor of all living opossums dates approximately to the Oligocene -Miocene boundary (23 million years ago) and is at most no older than Oligocene in age. Many extinct metatherians, such as Alphadon , Peradectes , Herpetotherium , and Pucadelphys , were once considered to be early opossums, but it has since been recognized that this

870-497: A narrow braincase , and a prominent sagittal crest . The dental formula is: 5.1.3.4 4.1.3.4  × 2 = 50 teeth. By mammalian standards, this is an unusually full jaw. The incisors are very small, the canines large, and the molars are tricuspid . Didelphimorphs have a plantigrade stance (feet flat on the ground) and the hind feet have an opposable digit with no claw . Like some New World monkeys , some opossums have prehensile tails . Like most marsupials, many females have

928-440: A plural suffix *-ari . Another important distinction involved the contrast between nouns marked as proximate and those marked as obviative . Proximate nouns were those deemed most central or important to the discourse, while obviative nouns were those less important to the discourse. When two third person participants appeared in a sentence, one was marked as proximate and the other as obviative, in order to distinguish which one

986-474: A pouch. The tail and parts of the feet bear scutes . The stomach is simple, with a small cecum . Like most marsupials, the male opossum has a forked penis bearing twin glandes . Although all living opossums are essentially opportunistic omnivores , different species vary in the amount of meat and vegetation they include in their diet. Members of the Caluromyinae are essentially frugivorous ; whereas

1044-465: A reproductive system that includes a bifurcated vagina and a divided uterus ; many have a marsupium , the pouch. The average estrous cycle of the Virginia opossum is about 28 days. Opossums do possess a placenta , but it is short-lived, simple in structure, and, unlike that of placental mammals, not fully functional. The young are therefore born at a very early stage, although the gestation period

1102-469: A single consonant (other than *h ) or vowel, or with a consonant plus *w or *y ; there were no sequences of consecutive vowels; and the word always ended in a short vowel. The vowels *i and *o never occurred in initial syllables. A sequence of consonant+semivowel could not be followed by *o or *o· . There was also a restriction which prevented two-syllable nouns from ending in a sequence of short vowel + consonant + short vowel. In most cases, when

1160-537: A smaller number of consonants than Proto-Algic. The reconstructed consonants are as follows (given in the Americanist phonetic notation common in the literature): The phoneme given in the table as ⟨r⟩ was reconstructed by Bloomfield as *l , but Goddard has more recently argued that it should be reconstructed as *r , largely because the earliest attestations of the majority of languages show some sort of rhotic as its reflex, which in many languages subsequently changed to

1218-586: Is a borrowing from Cree. However, evidence from Munsee and Blackfoot seem to also point toward *št as a valid separate cluster in PA (Munsee wìilùshtíikan , Blackfoot moʼtokááni , "head, hair"). Finally, all consonants and consonant clusters could be followed by *w or *y (although the sequences *čw and *hy did not occur; and *t and *θ were regularly replaced before *y , for which see below). Several allophonic processes, morphophonemic processes, and phonological constraints can be reconstructed. Among

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1276-1022: Is high in essential fatty acids and has been used as a chest rub and a carrier for arthritis remedies given as salves. Opossum pelts have long been part of the fur trade . Caluromysiops Caluromys Glironia Hyladelphys Tlacuatzin Marmosa Monodelphis Metachirus Chironectes Lutreolina Philander Didelphis Marmosops Cryptonanus Gracilinanus Lestodelphys Thylamys Caluromysiops Caluromys Glironia Hyladelphys Tlacuatzin Marmosa Monodelphis Chironectes Proto-Algonquian language Most Algonquian languages are similar enough that their relatedness has been recognized for centuries and

1334-465: Is not clear that they had redeveloped by the time of Proto-Algonquian. All instances in which Bloomfield reconstructed *o can now be reconstructed as *we based on evidence from some of the Eastern languages (for example, Bloomfield's *nekotwi "one" is now reconstructed as *nekwetwi based on forms like Munsee nkwúti ). There are still a handful of instances where *o can be reconstructed, usually as

1392-570: Is similar to that of many other small marsupials, at only 12 to 14 days. They give birth to litters of up to 20 young. Once born, the offspring must find their way into the marsupium, if present, to hold on to and nurse from a teat. Baby opossums, like their Australian cousins, are called joeys. Female opossums often give birth to very large numbers of young, most of which fail to attach to a teat , although as many as thirteen young can attach, and therefore survive, depending on species. The young are weaned between 70 and 125 days, when they detach from

1450-524: Is that the permissible consonant clusters were (first member on the left, second member across the top): In several cases the actual phonetic identity of the first member of the clusters was unknown, and Bloomfield's choice of symbols to represent them was purely arbitrary. Thus, ⟨x⟩ does not represent *[x], ⟨ç⟩ does not represent *[ç], and ⟨ʔ⟩ does not necessarily represent *[ ʔ ]. Goddard argues that Bloomfield's arbitrary symbol ⟨x⟩ be reconstructed as *s , and Bloomfield's ⟨ç⟩ be reconstructed as *r . While

1508-758: Is that this is the reflex it has in Arapaho. However, other researchers have argued for its reconstruction as a lateral fricative, */ɬ/ , in part because of the aforementioned merger in most languages with the phoneme traditionally reconstructed as *l . As with *i and *o , it is unclear whether *č was an independent phoneme in Proto-Algonquian. Almost all instances where *č is reconstructed are before *i , *i· , or *y , where it does not contrast with *t (see below), or are cases of diminutive consonant symbolism. However, Goddard recommends continuing to write it in reconstructions, since it seems to have been present in

1566-945: Is the bifurcated penis of the male and bifurcated vagina of the female (the source of the term didelphimorph , from the Greek didelphys , meaning "double-wombed"). Opossum spermatozoa exhibit sperm-pairing, forming conjugate pairs in the epididymis . This may ensure that flagella movement can be accurately coordinated for maximal motility . Conjugate pairs dissociate into separate spermatozoa before fertilization. Opossums are usually solitary and nomadic, staying in one area as long as food and water are easily available. Some families will group together in ready-made burrows or even under houses. Though they will temporarily occupy abandoned burrows, they do not dig or put much effort into building their own. As nocturnal animals, they favor dark, secure areas. These areas may be below ground or above. When threatened or harmed, they will " play possum ", mimicking

1624-491: Is the only species found in the United States and Canada. It is often simply referred to as an opossum , and in North America it is commonly referred to as a possum ( / ˈ p ɒ s əm / ; sometimes rendered as ' possum in written form to indicate the dropped "o"). The Australasian arboreal marsupials of suborder Phalangeriformes are also called possums because of their resemblance to opossums, but they belong to

1682-446: The ecological niches presently occupied by opossums were occupied by other groups of metatherians such as paucituberculatans and sparassodonts . Large opossums like Didelphis show a pattern of gradually increasing in size over geologic time as sparassodont diversity declined. Several groups of opossums, including Thylophorops , Thylatheridium , Hyperdidelphys , and sparassocynids developed carnivorous adaptations during

1740-461: The lutrine opossum and Patagonian opossum primarily feed on other animals. The water opossum or yapok ( Chironectes minimus ) is particularly unusual, as it is the only living semi-aquatic marsupial, using its webbed hindlimbs to dive in search of freshwater mollusks and crayfish. The extinct Thylophorops , the largest known opossum at 4–7 kg (8.8–15.4 lb), was a macropredator. Most opossums are scansorial , well-adapted to life in

1798-662: The marsupial order Didelphimorphia ( / d aɪ ˌ d ɛ l f ɪ ˈ m ɔːr f i ə / ) endemic to the Americas . The largest order of marsupials in the Western Hemisphere , it comprises 126 species in 18 genera . Opossums originated in South America and entered North America in the Great American Interchange following the connection of North and South America in the late Cenozoic . The Virginia opossum

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1856-511: The Grenadines , the common opossum or manicou is popular and can only be hunted during certain times of the year owing to overhunting. The meat is traditionally prepared by smoking, then stewing. It is light and fine-grained, but the musk glands must be removed as part of preparation. The meat can be used in place of rabbit and chicken in recipes. Historically, hunters in the Caribbean would place

1914-421: The appearance and smell of a sick or dead animal. This physiological response is involuntary (like fainting), rather than a conscious act. In the case of baby opossums, however, the brain does not always react this way at the appropriate moment, and therefore they often fail to "play dead" when threatened. When an opossum is "playing possum", the animal's lips are drawn back, the teeth are bared, saliva foams around

1972-410: The cluster may have been either *h or *ʔ . The clusters *št and *hr are each reconstructed on the basis of only a single correspondence set ( *št in *weštikwa·ni , "his/her head"; and *hr in *re·hre·wa , "s/he breathes") and may not have been part of Proto-Algonquian. David Pentland, for example, argued that Ojibwe oshtigwaan , claimed as the only form requiring the reconstruction of *št ,

2030-444: The clusters *čp and *čk ; since it can be reconstructed before *a in the term *čapo·nk- "splash"; and since *t does appear before *i· in some reconstructions of the onomatopoeic noun ti·nti·wa "blue jay" (however, see Wiktionary for more). Reconstruction of the consonant clusters has been relatively difficult, and the paths the clusters take in their evolutions to the daughter languages have been complex. The current view

2088-399: The daughter languages have innovated a great deal. PA had four classes of verbs: transitive verbs with an animate object (abbreviated TA), transitive verbs with an inanimate object (TI), intransitive verbs with an animate subject (AI), and intransitive verbs with an inanimate subject (II). Transitive verbs had two paradigms, termed objective and absolute . Objective verbs were used when

2146-730: The early 20th century, the Virginia opossum was widely hunted and consumed in the United States . Opossum farms have been operated in the United States in the past. Sweet potatoes were eaten together with the opossum in the American South. In 1909, a "Possum and 'Taters" banquet was held in Atlanta to honor President-elect William Howard Taft . South Carolina cuisine includes opossum, and President Jimmy Carter hunted opossums in addition to other small game. In Dominica , Grenada , Trinidad , Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and

2204-577: The late Miocene- Pliocene , before the arrival of carnivorans in South America. Most of these groups, with the exception of Lutreolina , are now extinct. It has been suggested that the size and shape of the ancestral Didelphid’s jaw would most closely match that of the modern Marmosa genus. Didelphimorphs are small to medium-sized marsupials that grow to the size of a house cat. They tend to be semi- arboreal omnivores , although there are many exceptions. Most members of this order have long snouts ,

2262-449: The most significant of these processes was that *t and *θ became *č and *š respectively before *i , *i· , and *y . For example, the initial *went- "from there" (as in *wentenamwa "s/he takes it from there") is realized as *wenč- in the word *wenči·wa "s/he comes from there", since it precedes *i· . There were several restrictions on phonotactics and the shape of the PA word that can be reconstructed. All words began with

2320-421: The mouth, the eyes close or half-close, and a foul-smelling fluid is secreted from the anal glands . The stiff, curled form can be prodded, turned over, and even carried away without reaction. The animal will typically regain consciousness after a period of a few minutes to four hours, a process that begins with a slight twitching of the ears. Some species of opossums have prehensile tails , although dangling by

2378-560: The neighboring Iroquoian languages . The earliest work on reconstructing the Algonquian proto-language was undertaken by the linguists Truman Michelson and Leonard Bloomfield . In 1925 Bloomfield reconstructed what he called "Primitive Central Algonquian", using what were at the time the four best-attested Algonquian languages: Fox , Ojibwe , Menominee , and Plains Cree . Following his initial reconstructions, investigations of other languages revealed that his "Primitive Central Algonquian"

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2436-484: The opossum as a "beast in bigness of a pig and in taste alike," while Smith recorded it "hath an head like a swine ... tail like a rat ... of the bigness of a cat." The Powhatan word ultimately derives from a Proto-Algonquian word ( *wa·p-aʔθemwa ) meaning "white dog or dog-like beast." Following the arrival of Europeans in Australia , the term possum was borrowed to describe distantly related Australian marsupials of

2494-440: The pronominal prefixes *ne- (first person), *ke- (second person), and *we- (third person) were added to a vowel-initial stem, an epenthetic *-t- was inserted between the prefix and the stem. Thus, the prefixes became *net- , *ket- , and *wet- respectively. For example, *ne- + *-ehkwa- = *netehkwa- "my louse". This feature goes back to Proto-Algic (compare Wiyot du- + híkw = dutíkw "my louse"). There were

2552-480: The protolanguage). The initial theory, first put forth by Frank T. Siebert, Jr. in 1967 based on examining of the ranges of numerous species of plants and animals for which reliable Algonquian cognates existed, holds that Proto-Algonquian was spoken between Lake Huron's Georgian Bay and Lake Ontario , in Ontario , Canada, and at least as far south as Niagara Falls . Research a generation later suggests that in fact it

2610-414: The result of a morphophonological process of vowel shortening. Goddard concludes that "an independent phoneme *o is of no great antiquity in Proto-Algonquian", but recommends continuing to use it in reconstructions. Likewise, Berman states that "PA *i is probably also of recent origin", derived from earlier (pre-Proto-Algonquian) *ye sequences and morphophonological shortening. Proto-Algonquian had

2668-421: The suborder Phalangeriformes , which are more closely related to other Australian marsupials such as kangaroos. They similarly have didelphimorphia, two ( di ) wombs ( delphus ). Opossums are often considered to be " living fossils ", and as a result they are often used to approximate the ancestral therian condition in comparative studies. But this is a mistake, because the oldest opossum fossils are from

2726-424: The tail is more common among juveniles. An opossum may also use its tail as a brace and a fifth limb when climbing. The tail is occasionally used as a grip to carry bunches of leaves or bedding materials to the nest. A mother will sometimes carry her young upon her back, where they will cling tightly even when she is climbing or running. Threatened opossums (especially males) will growl deeply, raising their pitch as

2784-408: The teat and leave the pouch. The opossum lifespan is unusually short for a mammal of its size, usually only one to two years in the wild and as long as four or more years in captivity. Senescence is rapid. Opossums are moderately sexually dimorphic with males usually being larger, heavier, and having larger canines than females. The largest difference between the opossum and non-marsupial mammals

2842-433: The threat becomes more urgent. Males make a clicking "smack" noise out of the side of their mouths as they wander in search of a mate, and females will sometimes repeat the sound in return. When separated or distressed, baby opossums will make a sneezing noise to signal their mother. The mother in return makes a clicking sound and waits for the baby to find her. If threatened, the baby will open its mouth and quietly hiss until

2900-407: The threat is gone. Opossums eat insects, rodents , birds, eggs, frogs, plants, fruits and grain. Some species may eat the skeletal remains of rodents and roadkill animals to fulfill their calcium requirements. In captivity, opossums will eat practically anything including dog and cat food, livestock fodder and discarded human food scraps and waste. Many large opossums (Didelphini) are immune to

2958-502: The trees or on the ground, but members of the Caluromyinae and Glironiinae are primarily arboreal, whereas species of Metachirus , Monodelphis , and to a lesser degree Didelphis show adaptations for life on the ground. Metachirus nudicaudatus , found in the upper Amazon basin , consumes fruit seeds, small vertebrate creatures like birds and reptiles and invertebrates like crayfish and snails , but seems to be mainly insectivorous . As marsupials, female opossums have

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3016-556: The venom of rattlesnakes and pit vipers ( Crotalinae ) and regularly prey upon these snakes. This adaptation seems to be unique to the Didelphini, as their closest relative, the brown four-eyed opossum , is not immune to snake venom. Similar adaptations are seen in other small predatory mammals such as mongooses and hedgehogs . Didelphin opossums and crotaline vipers have been suggested to be in an evolutionary arms race . Some authors have suggested that this adaptation originally arose as

3074-432: Was commented on by the early English and French colonists and explorers. For example, in 1787 (over a decade before Sir William Jones' famous speech on Indo-European), the theologian and linguist Jonathan Edwards Jr. deduced that the Algonquian languages of the eastern and central United States were "radically the same" ('radically' meaning having a common 'root', since radix is Latin for 'root'), and contrasted them with

3132-481: Was essentially equivalent to Proto-Algonquian. Bloomfield wrote a refinement and expansion of his reconstruction in 1946, and his two papers remain the starting point for all research and reconstructions of Proto-Algonquian. In the years since there has been an enormous amount of comparative work undertaken on the Algonquian family. There remains some disagreement over the Algonquian Urheimat (homeland of

3190-418: Was inserted between the two. Proto-Algonquian nouns had an animate/inanimate contrast: nouns representing animate beings (and some traditional items viewed as having spiritual powers) were classed as animate , while all other nouns were inanimate . The plural marker differed in form depending on whether the noun was animate or inanimate: animate nouns took a plural suffix *-aki , while inanimate nouns took

3248-486: Was solely on the basis of plesiomorphies ; they are now considered to belong to older branches of Metatheria that are only distantly related to modern opossums. Opossums probably originated in the Amazonia region of northern South America, where they began their initial diversification. They were minor components of South American mammal faunas until the late Miocene, when they began to diversify rapidly. Before that time,

3306-643: Was spoken farther west than this, perhaps "somewhere immediately west of Lake Superior " or on the Columbia Plateau . Proto-Algonquian had four basic vowels, *i , *e , *a , *o , each of which had a long counterpart (commonly written *i· , *e· , *a· , *o· ), for a total of eight vowels. The same inventory of eight vowels was found in Proto-Algic, but Proto-Algonquian did not inherit its inventory directly from Proto-Algic. Rather, several sound changes left pre-Proto-Algonquian without short * i and * o . It

3364-519: Was the subject and which was the object (since verbs inflected for whether they had a proximate or obviative subject and a proximate or obviative object). In a given stretch of discourse, there will not be two proximate or two obviative participants. There were personal pronouns which distinguished three persons, two numbers (singular and plural), inclusive and exclusive first person plural , and proximate and obviative third persons. Demonstrative pronouns have been more difficult to reconstruct, as many of

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