The Adaptable Opossum Author(s): Steven N. Austad Source: Scientific American , Vol. 258, No. 2 (FEBRUARY 1988), pp. 98-105 Published by: Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/24988984 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Scientific American This content downloaded from 138.26.31.3 on Sun, 15 Mar 2020 02:23:20 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The Adaptable Opossum The Virginia opossum can adapt quickly to a changing world. Part of its success may be due to a highly efficient reproductive strategy that includes the ability to adjust the sex ratios of its progeny by Steven N. Austad rom the time the Spanish ex ity is hard to sustain, particularly as on a number of Caribbean islands, plorer Vicente Y Inez Pinzon applied to American opossums. In where there is no paleontological Fand his crewmen discovered deed, the Virginia, or North Ameri evidence of their presence prior to a mother opossum carrying pouch can, opossum (Dide/phis virginiana) human colonization.