# Today (October 18th) is National Opossum Day. How will you celebrate?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-october-18th-is-national-opossum-day-how-will-you-celebrate/1033946>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [October 18, 2026, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-october-18th-is-national-opossum-day-how-will-you-celebrate/1033946 "2026-10-18T18:01:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2026, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-october-18th-is-national-opossum-day-how-will-you-celebrate/1033946/21 "2026-10-19T13:43:21Z")

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Interesting. I’d assumed the Australian name “possum” was just a colloquialism for “opossum” as it is in US English. Not so. Thanks for my TIL _du jour_.

And it’s not even 10am here. I might even get a second TIL before bedtime. 🤪

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**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2026, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-october-18th-is-national-opossum-day-how-will-you-celebrate/1033946/22 "2026-10-19T16:56:45Z")

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Wow, they really do that, huh? We didn’t see many possums growing up in Philly.

And by “many,” I mean “any.”

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**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:** [October 19, 2026, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-october-18th-is-national-opossum-day-how-will-you-celebrate/1033946/23 "2026-10-19T17:27:33Z")

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> [@Stratocaster](#):
>
> Wow, they really do that, huh?

Absolutely they do. I’ve seen it happen three times. Twice when scared by cats, once scared by me.

[![](https://i.ibb.co/tnj82HX/Possum-20250525-000705327.jpg) ](https://i.ibb.co/tnj82HX/Possum-20250525-000705327.jpg)

> [@Came face-to-face with a possum in my garage; now I got questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/came-face-to-face-with-a-possum-in-my-garage-now-i-got-questions/793943/5):
>
> In my (extensive) experience, cats are indifferent to possums. A strange cat or one who has been “voted off the island” shows up? There’s likely to be a fight happening. [A possum of any size](http://imgur.com/PC7ZuVw) shows up? It gets a glance, then gets ignored. I have inside/outside cats–and possums always manage to come in with them, more times than I care to count. When I catch one (by the tail–they are slow-moving and not very bright) I would occasionally try to annoy them into “playing possum”, but they never did …

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