Word: opossums
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...isolationist, not to say jaunty in a scoutmasterly fashion. However, 65 of the 375 species of mammals in America-north of the Rio Grande-are given knowledgeable biographies by an industrious naturalist. Leonard Lee Rue III knows more than other authorities, including Larousse, will let on about the American opossum: Did anyone else know that an infant opossum is the size of a pencil eraser, while a whole litter of 16 would not fill a teaspoon? Most backward and unfortunate of all American mammals, Mother usually has only a dozen teats. What happens to the odd opossums? They are dropouts...
...fish and game department; the rest are accidental, and 80% of the accidents are "the result of sheer carelessness." A common case is the hunter who drops his loaded rifle to the ground, and bang! - scratch one hunter. Last fall a nervous Texan tried to club a wounded opossum to death with the butt of his rifle and shot himself in the stomach on the first swing. In October, a Colorado hunter tried to demonstrate a fast draw for the benefit of his buddies, only to discover that his trigger finger was faster than his draw. He drilled a hole...
...opossum was chosen because it is a unique animal. Born only twelve days after conception, it spends the next 60 to 70 days in its mother's pouch, firmly and continuously attached to her breast. During that period, it grows and behaves much as a human embryo in normal gestation. Marquardt researchers are already well acquainted with the opossum, having learned how to detach the tiny fetus from the mother's breast to feed it artificially. Mixing drugs with the food, the researchers should be able to observe firsthand their effects on a growing fetus...