Mothers everywhere know the feeling of having the weight of the world on their back.
From the moment possums are brought into the world, it is survival of the fittest. Female possums usually have upwards of 25 babies when giving birth, with each of them being smaller than honey bee.
An opossum mother with her babies
She will sometimes carry her young upon her back, up to 15, and they will cling tightly even when she is climbing or running
[📹 Kevin Thurk / kevinthurkphotography]pic.twitter.com/JhRQjYHtia
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) August 31, 2023
Mother possums are known to be very nurturing to their offspring, but there’s only one issue: the baby possums often outnumber the mother’s available nutrients. Specifically, female possums only have 13 nipples, and when a baby possum latches on, it doesn’t let go for weeks on end.
That sadly means that almost half of the newborn possums usually don’t make it, and the ones that do get pretty clingy, and I mean that in both the literal and figurative senses of the word.
As you’ll see in the video below, this super possum mother is carrying her eight children on her back into their home, which looks to be underneath the porch of the person recording the footage.
You would think that the possum would be concerned walking that close to a person, but she must have just been so fed up and tired from her mother duties that she didn’t give a damn.
As she drags her children on her back like a strong-legged running back that just won’t go down, she knocks a couple of them off her back as she walks underneath the porch’s siding.
The baby possums don’t think too much of it and run back to cling back onto their mom’s back, which makes me wonder why they aren’t walking in the first place…
All in all, it’s a pretty remarkable video, and a great testament to all the hard work and thankless things that mothers always do. The caption for the clip states:
“She will sometimes carry her young upon her back, up to 15, and they will cling tightly even when she is climbing or running.”
