EACH MORTAL THING

What other creatures understand about death.

- KATHRYN SCHULZ

How much can any living being, human or otherwise, truly grasp about what it means to die?

The Virginia opossum, according to John Smith—that explorer of all things Virginia— “hath a head like a Swine, & a taile like a Rat, and is of the Bignes of a Cat.” Had Smith looked closer, he might have discovered that it also has opposable thumbs, fifty teeth (more than any other land mammal except the equally improbable giant armadillo), and, if female, thirteen nipples, which are arranged like a clockface, with twelve in a circle and one in the middle. These nipples are concealed inside a pouch on its belly, because the Virginia opossum is a marsupial, the only one native to North America.

All this is strange, but none of it is as strange as the behavior for which this possum is most famous: playing possum. Contrary to what you might imagine, that does not simply entail curling up and holding still. A possum that is playing possum keels over to one side, its tongue hanging out, its eyes open and unblinking. Saliva drips from its mouth while its other end leaks urine and feces, together with a putrescent green goop. Its body temperature and heart rate drop, its breathing becomes almost imperceptible, and its tongue turns blue. If, in a fit of sadism or scientific experimentation, you cut off its tail while it is in this state, it will not so much as flinch.