If you are driving late at night, especially around routes near the woods, you should always drive carefully as there are some animals that are mostly active at night. Nocturnal mammals like the opossum usually fall victim to car accidents. Even though there are fewer vehicles on the road at night, some drivers carelessly zoom into the road not thinking of the consequences.
An unfortunate fate befell an opossum mother and her babies as they sadly got hit by a car.
Since opossum mothers let their babies cling on their back when the mother hunts for food, these babies are more exposed to the dangers that may easily overwhelm them. One night, an opossum mother was out with her babies, hunting for food by the road.
They were crossing a road when a car unexpectedly ran by and hit them. Sadly, the mother and most of her babies died, but one opossum remained alive, clinging on its mother’s back.
Luckily, rescuers found the poor joey in time and took it with them to be introduced to its surrogate mother.
The rescuers took the joey to the vet and found out that it was unharmed and healthy! However, the joey was still too young to survive on its own, which is why the rescuers thought it would be great to provide it a surrogate mother to up its chances of survival. They gave the opossum a name – Poncho.
The rescuers brought out Hantu, a white German shepherd who did not have any puppies of her own, and they introduced her to the tiny opossum. It was surprising to see Poncho and Hantu get along so well that their mother-child relationship formed almost instantaneously.
Their bond strengthened over the years and they became inseparable from each other.
Poncho immediately thought of Hantu as his mother. Everywhere Hantu goes, you would not fail to see Poncho hitching a ride on her back. This continued for three years and Poncho grew a lot bigger than before.
Even though he was old enough to separate himself from Hantu, he still preferred to cling onto the back of his acting mother and best friend. Both of them are living the life at the Rare Species Fund in South Carolina.
What is the Rare Species Fund?
Rare Species Fund (RSF) is a worldwide organization that helps with financial support and practical training to their members for wildlife conservation. Aside from educating people about wildlife diversity and important wildlife conservation practices, RSF contributes to expanding awareness about the current wildlife population and shows us how we can contribute to saving the endangered species ourselves.
They fund small or large organizations implementing programs that will benefit the wildlife and focus on using their money and facilities to help conservation researches and projects bear into good fruition.
Thanks to the rescuers, the once fragile and helpless marsupial now has a giant dog to cling to.
Poncho and Hantu are now one of the perfect examples of unexpected animal friendships. If you loved this video, share it with your friends so they too could witness how wholesome and sweet this unusual pair is.
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