An Oppossum Out in the Middle of the Day?

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On my afternoon walk the dog found itself a rare daytime sight and my mother and I quickly called it back. The slow, lumbering animal we initially thought to be a porcupine looked at us with its white head, and we knew that it was an opossum instead, but out in the day?! We thought the typical 'nocturnal animal = has rabies' approach, and still got the dog away. But the animal didn't look sick, or like it was doing anything other than walking around at 2 in the afternoon. So thinking about it, I got on the internet and searched for why this animal would be in the middle of the day, and here is what I learned: Opossums are naturally resistant to the rabies virus because of an extremely low body temperature atypical in mammals. This temperature makes the virus unable to survive in the opossum's system and it's generally wondered if the animal can even contract the virus. So no rabies worries! Opossums will hiss and drool when it encounters a threat, thus making it appear sick. It is in fact healthy and that's just what it does. If that doesn't work, it will fall over and... play 'possum... Opossums are easily frightened and it will take a long time to get them out of a tree. If they are scared by a dog or a coyote or the like, they may not get the nerve to leave the tree until the day time, and slowly work their way back to their den. So this one was probably shaking in a tree through the night, because we have coyotes around. So that's why my daytime opossum was outside when it shouldn't have been, and because it is awesome and eats ticks, it helps prevent the spread of Lyme disease. So go opossum! I'm glad the dog decided to listen and not hurt it.