Jack appears to have a target in sight, and is coming in on a low approach. With her hair tied back in work mode, whoever she has her eyes on might be in for a treat! Just try not to think about how opossums have the most teeth out of any North American land mammal, with uniquely spike-crowned molars. I’m sure she’ll be careful! It’s not as though she has a preference for hard and fast or anything. Nothing to worry about!

Just about all anthro opossums have whiskers, but there’s a pretty wide range of preference in how individuals choose to treat them. Some opossums with modern sensibilities like to trim them to even lengths for a more tidy look, with some even choosing to clip them completely. (They’re sensory structures, but don’t have sensation within the whisker itself, so there’s no discomfort with either approach.) Some opossum folks, meanwhile, prefer to let their whiskers grow wild to their natural length, which varies a bit between individuals. Jack counts herself among this last group’s number, preferring this au naturale approach. She’s not out there trying to look neat and tidy for anybody, and she finds her whiskers quite useful day to day. She’s used to their constant sensory input, having never trimmed them, and they help out a lot when she’s navigating dark, close spaces. With all the big machines she’s behind and up inside, and all the tight corridors and ducts she moves through, it can be very useful to know exactly where her head is in relation to nearby hard surfaces.

Do Jack’s whiskers play any positive role in her more intimate activities? She probably claims that they do, but I’m not sure there’s any evidence to support that. Let’s all just hope that Sam’s thighs aren’t ticklish!

I really love this piece! There’s a lot of fun opossum anatomy on display, even including that little bit of lip droop at the corners from being able to open their mouths so wide. What fun!