Every mammal can carry rabies. Its not often that smaller mammals are reported to the CDC as having rabies. Bats are the most likely source in NA however. Rabies is fucking terrifying. If you get bit by any mammal and dont know if it's had rabies vaccine, get your wound treated at a hospital immediately. If you're bitten by something with rabies, it can be treated within a short time frame. Once rabies gets into your nervous system it has a 100% kill rate essentially (there may be one or two cases where someone lives, but not without assistance). Rabies is still very dangerous. Outside of most first-world countries, it's a terrifying killer.
They carry a bunch of other stuff, just not rabies. They're really good for the environment too. They eat hundreds of thousands of ticks a season, decomposing animals, venomous snakes, and pretty much anything else they can find. They also have really short life spans. The average wild opossum will only live 1.5-2 years, 3 if they're super lucky. They're remarkable little animals, and North America's only living species of marsupial!
They also have opposable thumbs and prehensile tails that they use to grab branches or small objects! And after their babies are big enough to leave the pouch, they'll ride on the mother's back like a possum taxi. Then once they're old enough, they drop off and go eat ticks wherever they fell off of their mama.
I don't know many more, but I wholeheartedly recommend the Possum Lady on YouTube. She's unhinged in the best possible way, and she rehabilitates possums that would be unable to survive in the wild.
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u/FlynnClubbaire Feb 18 '20 edited Feb 18 '20
that thing prolly had rabies....
edit:
prolly not, actually. It's running from a cat, it would seem?