A picture of a possum playing dead doesn’t really do it justice ... as they’re often depicted doing in cartoons. But it’s a myth that possums sleep this way: Their tails are only strong ...

Idiomatically, “playing possum” means “pretending to be dead,” but what exactly playing possum means to a possum is considerably harder to say. Does the possum have any idea what it means ...

And as the nickname “playing possum” suggests, it’s not unique to frogs. Fire-bellied toads from Asia and Europe also get dramatic in fake death. When playing dead, the toads (which are ...