by Greg Mayer

(Update below). In comments on an earlier post, it was mentioned that opossums’ having a prehensile tail was a myth. But it isn’t: opossums of several species, have prehensile tails, and use them to hang in trees. Here’s an example.

Here’s a closer one, but the branch is out of the picture.

And here’s a Virginia opossum.

There are lots of other photos on the web. Try here (the cutest), here, and here. I’d have posted these in the comments on the earlier post, but some quirk of WordPress (or perhaps my understanding of it) allows video but not stills in comments.

UPDATE. Diane G. suggests tail use is more common in juveniles, and that suggestion is born out at least by the relative frequency in images found by Google. The following picture from the 9th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1875-1889) shows juveniles using their tails on their mother.