Yes, possums/opossums are native to Australia and were introduced by the New Zealand Government (believe it or not!) in the 1940′s for their fur and the sport of hunting them. They found their niche here in NZ! “Yum!”, they said, as they’d never tasted leaves like those of our native trees.

They wiped out several prized species of plants, notably the native fuchsia which no longer grows in the bush but is preserved by a few dedicated horticulturalists. NZ fuchsia is like ice-cream to the possum!

Ka kite

As you say, one of his points is that most creatures adapted to their habitats — in some cases, so well that they can’t easily get out of the ecological corner they’ve painted themselves into. Koalas, if I recall, eat only certain eucalyptus leaves; pandas survive on particular kinds of bamboo.

(I hadn’t known there were marsupials called possums in Australia and New Zealand.)

Some time ago I wrote a unit of science learning for year 9 students on how plants and animals adapt to their environment. I learnt that some living things are ubiquitous due to their adaptability. Pest it might be, the opossum is nevertheless a wonderful creature. It seems to be able to survive on just about any type of vegetation.

This is much to the consternation of our conservationists here in New Zealand who want the creature eradicated on account of the damage it causes to the environment. There are many plants as well as animals that are adaptable like the opossum.

Adaptability of humans, as you so brilliantly illuminated, lies in our ability to think. Stripped as when first born, we are vulnerable as lit candles in a draft. Yet our thinking skills, through the agency of tools, made us truly ubiquitous on earth.

The ability to think, a feature that clearly must have been honed through evolution, is an adaptation that allows us to survive the most extreme environments – think of a deep-sea diver, a firefighter, an explorer in the Antarctic or an astronaut.

Obviously our adaptability isn’t going to confine us to the globe.