The yapok or water opossum is a marsupial that ranges into Mexico and Central America.
Americans are an unusually insular sort of people. We fail at geography big time. Don’t ask the average American what the capital of Canada is. Don’t tell tell us that Mexico City is the largest city on the continent.
“Because Mexico ain’t on our continent!”
That attitude even affects how we view nature.
When I was a little boy, I accepted without any question that North America’s only marsupial is the Virginia opossum.
It seems this claim is so widely-accepted that it is usually mentioned within the first sentence of any description of the species.
There is, of course, a big problem with this description. North America isn’t just the US and Canada.
This is North America:
Yes. All that territory from Mexico to Panama is part of North America, and in those countries, there are multiple species of marsupials. Central America has 11 species. Mexico alone has has 8!
It is correct to say that the only marsupial in the US and Canada is the Virginia opossum, but it is geographical ignorance that only an American could conjure that says the Virginia opossum is the only marsupial found on the continent.
So when you see someone saying that Virginia opossums are the sole representatives of marsupials on this continent, realize that this person hasn’t thought through what he or she is actually saying.
Or is totally unaware that there isn’t continent between “North America” and South America.
There is also a subconscious racism at work, which sees only a community with Anglo-America as the true North America and casts aside that which lies to our south as being the other.
It may all be a silly little thing, but it grinds my gears.
And when we write about nature, we need to be more careful with our language.
