What is Playing Possum?

Video Transcript

"Well you might have heard the term playing possum. That is when the animal plays fains death. It really has no control over it. It is like an overload on the system and she shuts down. This can happen for a couple of minutes to a couple of hours so if you find one of these in your backyard and you think it might be dead, you might want to leave it alone for a while and see if it comes to. If it is in an unsafe area, of course you need to move it. Make sure there are no kids or dogs in the area. Slip her into a cardboard box and move her to a safe area and make sure the cardboard box is shallow enough so that she can get out. She is obviously not playing possum, is she?"