# Did you know opossums and possums are different animals? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 1, 2016, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-know-opossums-and-possums-are-different-animals/773554 "2016-12-01T20:41:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2016, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-know-opossums-and-possums-are-different-animals/773554/41 "2016-12-03T11:47:42Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > It seems to me that Capt. Cook’s botanist should have called the Australian animal an Opossum because it looked (to him) like an Opossum. But he, like most people, called it a Possum for the same reason everyone else does. So, both are Opossums, but get called Possums. Is there any evidence he was trying to differentiate the two by lopping off the O, or he just didn’t know better either? Further on this matter –- derived from Googling “Sir Joseph Banks opossum”. The material below, proves impossible to link to –- at least for me -– but when I performed the Google exercise, it was the fourth “hit” down on the first page: headed “Sugar Gliders: Everything about…” –- seemingly from a book by Caroline Wightman. The relevant paragraphs read: “Contrary to popular belief, the terms _possum_ and _opossum_ are not interchangeable. To refer to an American _opossum_ as a _possum_ is to abbreviate its real name. To refer to an Australian possum as an _opossum_ is outdated and incorrect. The _o_ has been dropped in the Australian possum’s name in order to make a distinction between two very different groups of marsupials. Captain James Cook’s botanist, Sir Joseph Banks, is largely responsible for initiating the confusion. In 1770, while on a voyage to the South Pacific, Captain Cook and his crew spent time aground in Australia… while aground, Sir Joseph recorded the finding of ‘an animal of the Opossum tribe’. This animal was in fact a common ringtail possum… Sir Joseph probably chose the term _opossum_ to describe the Australian animal because it was a marsupial and showed some resemblance to the marsupial opossums which he had observed in the Americas. It was an unfortunate choice on his part because the American and Australian marsupials are only distantly related and are very different from one another. It is a pity that Sir Joseph did not stay true to form and ask the aborigines what they called the animal (as he did with the kangaroo). If he had, possums would now be called ‘toolahs’ or ‘bobucks’ or something else uniquely Australian.” (In the course of this thread, there has come to mind for me an extremely silly musical number which was in vogue for a while in the UK about fifty years ago: a rather catchy tune which was, almost entirely, just whistled by a guy: the only words - showing up at intervals –- being, “I was Kaiser Bill’s batman”. I have perpetually running through my head at present, this foolish “musical” offering; only with the words changed to “I was Captain Cook’s botanist”.) ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2016, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-know-opossums-and-possums-are-different-animals/773554/42 "2016-12-03T15:17:49Z")
“Contrary to popular belief, the terms _possum_ and _opossum_ are not interchangeable. To refer to an American _opossum_ as a _possum_ is to abbreviate its real name” Similar to an earlier post I made in this thread, Caroline Wightman is wrong. The “real name” for something is what enough people call it and other people recognize what you mean when you say it. People have been calling the North American opossum species a possum for centuries, so “possum” _is not wrong_, and is (a) “real name” for it. If I, at this moment, coined a new name for the North American opossum–say, the gligpooglewag, and if that name caught on and tens of millions of people started using the word gligpooglewag when referring to the North American opossum species, then “gligpooglewag” will be a “real name” for the North American opossum, along with all other regional and historical names for it that were recognized by the population using it. Animals (and other things) can have many, many regional names, none of which are more valid than the others–this is one of the reasons scientific nomenclature was invented in the first place. People may not know what you are talking about when you say opossum, possum, or gligpooglewag, but the scientific name _Didelphis virginiana_ is valid worldwide (and, being very specific, is the one that _can_ be incorrect.) ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2016, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-know-opossums-and-possums-are-different-animals/773554/43 "2016-12-03T16:17:53Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > The “real name” for something is what enough people call it and other people recognize what you mean when you say it. People have been calling the North American opossum species a possum for centuries, so “possum” _is not wrong_, and is (a) “real name” for it. I partially agree (and would say that, similarly, it’s not wrong to refer to bison as buffalo). But what about the distinction between a “real name” and a nickname? A nickname for something or someone fits the description of “what enough people call it and other people recognize what you mean when you say it,” but (at least for certain useful meanings of “real name”) it’s not that thing or person’s real name. (For example, for some people called Larry, “Larry” is in fact their real name, while for others their real name is “Lawrence.”) In this sense, one could say that “possum” is a nickname for the American opossum, but it’s the real name of the Australian critter. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2016, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-know-opossums-and-possums-are-different-animals/773554/44 "2016-12-03T16:52:43Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > In this sense, one could say that “possum” is a nickname for the American opossum, but it’s the real name of the Australian critter. Yes, but by the same logic you could say that “opossum” is the nickname for the American animal while the “real” name is “aposoum” or “apässum” (as per [dictionary.com](http://www.dictionary.com/browse/opossum).) And even _that_ is an accident of which Native American groups were being asked by explorers “hey, what’s _that_ thing?” If Indians in Florida or Georgia or South Carolina or Texas had been asked first and the name circulated amongst English-speaking Europeans, then we would have been calling it something different. (Spanish ended up with [a different word](http://www.native-languages.org/legends-opossum.htm) for that reason.) And, since the original explorers of Australia [called the animals there opossums](https://books.google.com/books?id=BL8CAAAAIAAJ&dq=An%20Opassom%20hath%20an%20head%20like%20a%20Swine&pg=PA330#v=onepage&q=An%20Opassom%20hath%20an%20head%20like%20a%20Swine&f=false), then “possum” in Australia could be called the nickname for opossum. Or they both could be called nicknames for the Australian Aboriginal name for them. For a given species, by a given Aboriginal group. You see the problem with common names. Very messy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-know-opossums-and-possums-are-different-animals/773554.md?page=2)