9 Awesome Facts about Opossums
Part-Time Genius
iHeartPodcasts and Kaleidoscope
4.5 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 17 February 2026
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We honk at them in the street and shoo them away from our trash cans, but opossums are so much more than nocturnal nuisances. In today’s episode, Mango and Gabe get better acquainted with America’s only native marsupials, including the truth behind their famous talent for playing dead and their surprising connections to President Taft and Captain John Smith. Plus: A stirring ode to the opossum on Mango’s balcony and a tongue-in-cheek recipe for “planked possum.”
Got a question or idea for the show? Call our hotline at (302) 405-5925 or email higeniuses@gmail.com.
Follow us on Instagram @parttimegenius and Bluesky @parttimegenius.bsky.social!
Photo by The New York Public Library via Unsplash. Thanks, NYPL!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:18.8 | You're listening to Part-Time Genius, |
| 0:20.8 | the production of kaleidoscope and IHeart Radio. |
| 0:28.2 | Guess what, Gabe? What's that, Mango? |
| 0:31.1 | Did you know that an opossum and a possum are two completely different animals. |
| 0:39.1 | That didn't even sound like two different words. |
| 0:42.1 | I know. I actually thought that as I said it. |
| 0:44.3 | But for a long time, I thought it was the same animal. |
| 0:46.4 | It was just like a regional dialect difference. |
| 0:48.8 | Like, depending on where you live, a groundhog is also called a ground pig or a marmit or a woodchuck or even |
| 0:57.5 | a land beaver. |
| 0:59.4 | Land beaver. |
| 1:00.3 | I don't know about some of those. |
| 1:01.8 | Like, how much wood does a ground pig chuck that it doesn't have the same ring to it now? |
| 1:06.8 | Yeah, you know, like trying to determine how much more winter there is based on whether a land beaver saw its own shadow, right? Like some words just work better than others, even if it's the same animal. But back to possums and opossums. It turns out they are different words with different pronunciations and they refer to two totally different animals. |
| 1:30.4 | Okay, and which one is it that keeps knocking over my trash cans? |
| 1:34.7 | Because, you know, I want to address them properly, you know, when I yell out the window at them tonight. |
| 1:38.1 | Yeah, so that would be opossums. |
| 1:41.4 | And those are the ones that you and I are familiar with, right? |
| 1:45.3 | Like those stumpy little mammals with grayish fur, rat-like tails, and pointy white faces that you sometimes see rooting through your garbage. And |
| 1:50.4 | opossums are native to the Americas, and they actually got their name from Captain John |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from iHeartPodcasts and Kaleidoscope, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of iHeartPodcasts and Kaleidoscope and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.