DATE: Saturday, May 10, 1997                TAG: 9705100287

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY JEFFREY S. HAMPTON, CORRESPONDENT 

                                            LENGTH:   72 lines

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE MANY A POSSUM'S UNHAPPY END COMES WHEN THE CRITTER TAKES TO THE HIGHWAY.

The question is not ``Why does the possum cross the road?'' The question is will he make it.

In most cases he won't.

``They have little tiny brains,'' said Perry Sumner of Goldsboro, fur bearer project leader for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. ``When a car is coming they just stop and look at it.''

Consequently, roads in North Carolina are scattered with dead possums. Part of the problem is possums will eat just about anything, including carrion, which leads them to the road where they find dead possums, which puts them in the way of passing vehicles, which draws other hungry possums, and so on.

``They call it a possum slick,'' Sumner said. ``It ends up being a big greasy spot on the road.''

Possums are active mostly at night, so most people see them only in flattened form on the highway. Even in Peterson's Field Guide to the Mammals it says, ``Often seen in the beams of auto headlights or dead along the highway.''

Since they are not seen alive very often, a description from the field guide might help.

Possums range in color from gray to almost black. They have white faces, pointy noses and small furless ears. Their long, hairless tails are prehensile, which means they can hang by them from tree limbs. Possums will lie motionless or ``play possum'' when a predator threatens, and it works, Sumner said.

Possums may not stand up well against steel-belted radials, but they are tougher than they look. They don't contract rabies like other mammals, and snake poison doesn't bother them, either.

``A lot of them get bit by rattlesnakes and water moccasins, and they just don't die,'' Sumner said.

Possums thrive in both town and country. Often city residents call animal control because possums have been in the garbage or eating the pet food. Amateurs shouldn't try to handle them. They have 50 sharp little teeth, the most of any mammal in the United States. They move slowly, but they bite fast.

Joe Beattie, who lives in downtown Elizabeth City, has had one visit his yard for two years now. He just lets him go about his business.

``He comes in our yard sometimes at night and eats the cat food,'' Beattie said nonchalantly. ``The cat doesn't care.''

Possums are the only marsupials in North America, carrying their young in a pouch for two weeks after birth. Mother possums may have up to 14 young.

Biologists have found possums in every county in North Carolina. They are found in most of the contiguous United States, though cold climates are tougher on them, said John Kelly, mammal collections manager for the N.C. Museum of Natural Science.

``Really bad winters knock them down,'' said Kelly, who came to North Carolina from New England. ``They're often missing ears from frostbite.''

In the 1970s, possums were a more important part of the fur trade, Sumner said. Some furriers made entire coats from possum pelts, though they never gained a lot of popularity. The coats were attractive, but the leather was so thin the coats didn't last.

Now, possum pelts bring about $1 each, Sumner said, and are used mostly for trim or lining collars.

Some folks used to eat possums as a cheap and easy to catch source of protein.

``I used to eat them when I didn't know better,'' said Hattie Berry of Barco. ``I was small, and you ate what people put on your plate. I didn't eat them anymore once I found out what they were. No sir.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]

DREW WILSON/The Virginian-Pilot

This possum pauses, at left, and probably saves its own life, when

confronted by traffic at the busy four-lane Whalebone Junction in

Nags Head on Thursday morning. Then below, undaunted, it continues

across the highway in pursuit of whatever possums pursue.

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