They help to keep the environment clean by consuming carion and all kinds of bugs, including roaches. They help gardeners by consuming snails, slugs, and other destructive creatures. They also eat over ripe fruit before it rots and catch and eat rats. In fact, opossums will eat just about anything. Leave a bowl of cat food or dog food out long enough and you'll probably attract a opposum.
Opossums carry bundles of leaves and stems clasped in their tails when they are building nests.
Opossums are born after a gestation period of only 13 days. Blind, embryonic in appearance, and about the size of a bee, the newborn opossum crawls unaided to its mother's pouch, where it attaches to a nipple. The nipple completely fills the tiny opossum's mouth, firmly attaching it to its mother. The opossum then remains in the mother's pouch for another 7 weeks, until it is large enough to detach itself from the nipple. Mother opossums carry their babies on their backs, each night, when they prowl for food.