I find the marsupials of the Americas fascinating. The opossums with their long rat-like tails cannot compete in the cuteness stakes with the possums of Australia. Although I have been to the USA many times (to sit for hours in a darkened lecture theatre) and the countries in Central and South America, until Colombia in November last year I had never seen an American marsupial. Then along came three species.
A delight of a mammal-watching trip* as opposed to a birding one is the greater emphasis on night spotting. Birds, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates are seen as well of course. On our first night walking along the road through the Otún Quimbaya Sanctuary on the western slope of the Cordillera Central we saw this Derby’s Woolly Opossum (Caluromys derbianus) by the light of the spotlamp. It is a terrible photograph since I had the camera set for a bird before darkness fell and pressed the shutter release anyway in the hope of getting something on the camera’s sensor.
Derby’s Woolly Opossum occurs from Mexico through the countries of Central America and then as far south as Ecuador. The alternative name of Central American Woolly Opossum as used in the IUCN Red List therefore seems misleading. In Colombia we were seeing the animal at the eastern edge of its range since it is confined by the Cordillera Central to the Cauca Valley. The river Otún flows westward into the Cauca.
The species was named for the well-known politician and zoologist the13th Earl of Derby (1775 – 1851) who had a large menagerie and museum at Knowsley Hall near Liverpool. Seeing his eponymous opossum in South America or his Derbyan Parakeet in the wilds of Sichuan in China does feel incongruous—and very unLiverpool.
On the other side of the Cordillera in the Magdalena Valley we saw a Brown-eared Woolly Opossum (Caluromys lanatus) briefly before it disappeared behind a tree trunk.
Another species at Otún Quimbaya was the Common Opossum (Didelphis marsupialis). It was around the lodge and restaurant at the end of the road. We saw the same species on the rafters of our accommodation at Hato La Aurora in the Llanos, the wetlands of north-eastern Colombia.
Opossums often produce more offspring than mammary glands. Therefore any that do not find a teat in the female’s pouch die. As in marsupials generally the young remain attached to the teat for virtually their entire development.
I did not know opossums were popular items in the human diets of the Americas, from the USA southwards. I cannot say I fancy the idea.
*Naturetrek’s Colombia’s Endemic Mammals
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