Caught Another Possum, This Time "Playing Possum"

Its been 15 months since I last trapped a possum; in 2013 I trapped three at our house and one at a neighbor's place. And a few have passed through mooching on the outside cats' food, but I wasn't able to trap them and they moved on.

But another one showed up last week and Saturday night I trapped him - photos after the jump ...
This is what I found in my trap Sunday morning:



His jaw was stuck in the cage, his eyes were frozen open and he appeared motionless. I was devastated - I went in to tell my wife, choking back the tears, that I had indeed trapped the possum, but that it had died in the cage.

I knew, of course, that these animals "played possum" but this guy went all-out. I was positive he was dead and was planning to dump his carcass into the garbage can for the next morning's pick-up. But as I was prying he fingers from the trap, I saw he was moving. Slowly, he came out of his catatonic state:



Reassured that he was alive, I put him in the car, and like with the others, took him to Audubon Park by the river:



He was a little slow to get out of the cage, but soon he crawled away: