Range
The Virginia opossum is found throughout Central America and North America east of the Rockies from Costa Rica to southern Ontario; it seems to be still expanding its range northward and has been found farther north than Toronto. In recent years their range has expanded west and north all the way into northern Minnesota. Its ancestors evolved in South America, but invaded North America in the Great American Interchange, which was enabled by the formation of the Isthmus of Panama about 3 million years ago.
Originally native to the eastern United States, it was intentionally introduced into the West during the Great Depression, probably as a source of food, and now occupies much of the Pacific coast. Its range has been expanding steadily northwards into Canada.
Read more about this topic: Virginia Opossum
Famous quotes containing the word range:
“Lord Bateman prepared for another marriage,
So both their hearts so full of glee.
‘I will range no more to foreign countries
Now since Sophia have a-crossed the sea.’”
—Unknown. Young Beichan (l. 81–84)
“They didn’t know
how
my heart woke
to a range and measure
of song
I hadn’t known.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“We must continually remind students in the classroom that expression of different opinions and dissenting ideas affirms the intellectual process. We should forcefully explain that our role is not to teach them to think as we do but rather to teach them, by example, the importance of taking a stance that is rooted in rigorous engagement with the full range of ideas about a topic.”
—bell hooks (b. 1955)