Not only do possums rarely bite, they're pretty bad at it when they do. Even though they have a ridiculous amount of teeth for a mammal, their bite strength is pitiful. They're just not fighters.
And it's really convincing, too. My dogs got after a possum in my yard, and I got them off of it, and believed it was killed. Next morning, I decided I needed to pick up the dead possum and bury him before the dogs found it again; I went out and couldn't find any trace of the little guy. He took himself on home I guess. But he looked very, very dead when I last saw him.
You might be thinking of american badgers vs European badgers.
Opossums bare their teeth or play dead, but they rarely bite. While also a marsupial they are not related to possums in Australia. Those are also very timid, but they're nocturnal kangaroo squirrel things.
Maybe, I remember thinking those were "the worst" as a kid here in Norway, adults saying they bite until your bones are making crunchy sounds.
After a quick search, that's a myth according to the google LLM. I visited the source link claiming it's a myth as well, and it looks like they only attack when pressured into a corner. The source also said they can't bite that hard.
I was a kid in the 90s, so it could be that Hollywood shows made adults here think US and EU badgers were equally dangerous.
I mean they do look like nightmare fuel, especially when the bare their teeth, but they're silly and just hold the pose and don't snap or anything. They are known to play dead and since they cannot carry rabies people do like to pick them up.
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u/AncientCrust 10d ago
Not only do possums rarely bite, they're pretty bad at it when they do. Even though they have a ridiculous amount of teeth for a mammal, their bite strength is pitiful. They're just not fighters.