Baby Carrier: American Possum (Didelphis marsupials)

The opossum gives birth to 16-20 babies – only 12 days after mating!

These newborns – blind and only the size of rice grains – must journey across their mother’s hairy belly to the safety of her pouch, where 13 nipples await.

Those that find their way to a nipple triple their size in the first week, then get ten times larger the next week.

Baby possums – called kits – leave the pouch after about 75 days. They stay with their mothers – often riding on her back – until they are 3 or 4 months old.