A Human-opossum Hybrid?

Mammalian Hybrids

EUGENE M. MCCARTHY, PHD GENETICS, ΦΒΚ
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Hell and night must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.
—Othello, I, iii

Note: Any claim that hybrids can actually be produced from this disparate and poorly documented cross would require confirmation from a specimen.

In 1909, South Carolina newspapers reported a woman giving birth to a creature that looked like a naked opossum with a stub tail. Given the locale of the reported event, the type of opossum in question would be a Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginianus). The following is a transcript of one of the reports as it appeared on page 2, column 3 of the December 1, 1909, issue of The Lexington Dispatch, a newspaper published in Lexington, South Carolina (source):

Monstrosity At Brunson

Negress Gives Birth to Being More
Like an Opossum than a Child

    Brunson, November 28.—Special: One of the most unique products of humanity on record is at present in evidence in the town of Brunson [a town in Hampton County, South Carolina]. Very recently a negro woman, a resident of this town, gave birth to an object or being decidedly, in appearance, much more animal than human. The mother is an unmarried woman of about 35 years of age; black, of good health and strong physique. The child or product is in appearance wholly animal, and is in shape, size and general make-up a facsimile of an opossum, minus the tail, and furry skin. In the place of the tail, there is a stub of about an inch in length, the end of it suggesting amputation of the caudal appendage. The shape of the four legs and feet, with claws; the shape of the head and size of the body, limbs and head are all ’possum-like or animal-like. Only the eyes are unlike the ’possum’s. They are larger, rounder and further back on the sides of the head. This monstrosity is not living, but is carefully preserved in alcohol in the office of Dr. J. L. Folk, resident physician. Dr. Folk will probably produce it at the next meeting of the State Medical Association for inspection and diagnostic theory or hypothesis.
opossum Didelphis virginianus

The same report, as published in The Bamberg Herald (Nov. 28, 1909, front page col. 2) >>

In addition to the report above, there are various others, some of which are quoted elsewhere on this website, about mothers giving birth to offspring not of their own kind, a supposed phenomenon known as xenogenesis.

In the Saint Louis Medical and Surgical Journal (1881, vol. 41, p. 438; ||rrw87kl), a physician, Dr. J. B. Bolton of Hannibal, Missouri, reported a case of a woman giving birth to a child that "had one ear like that of an opossum."

Table of contents >>

Bibliography >>

Biology Dictionary >>

By the same author: Handbook of Avian Hybrids of the World, Oxford University Press (2006).