Grubby, the female opossum that hitched a ride to Alaska on a shipping container two years ago — spurring a manhunt, memes and a frenzy in a small coastal town — has died, the Alaska Zoo said Tuesday.
The Virginia opossum, which zoo staff had taken to calling Ophelia, died Saturday from what the zoo described in a statement as complications of old age.
The marsupial was found in spring 2023 huddled in the back of a shipping container that arrived in Homer from Washington state. Opossums are not native to Alaska.
The opossum was eventually caught and transferred to the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage, where it would live out the rest of its days.
According to the zoo’s statement, Grubby was about 3 1/2 years old when she died. The average lifespan for an opossum in the wild is one to two years, according to the zoo.
