Back Cover

What is it?

Our photographers have been busy exploring the intricacies of the Missouri outdoors. See if you can guess this month’s natural wonder. The answer is revealed below.

Opossum

On the back cover and right is an opossum by Noppadol Paothong. It is a unique Missouri mammal because it is our only representative of a group of primitive mammals called marsupials, or pouched mammals, that live mostly in Australia. The females of this group typically have a prominent pouch on the belly where the young are carried and nourished for a time after their birth. In Missouri, the breeding season begins about the first of February. To learn more about opossums, visit the link listed below.