For a new opossum species, 4 cans of Stella, and a trip to the zoo? I'm already looking online for a suit big enough to fit.
I've just visited Puxton Park. I was let in without the need of an accompanying child or someone dressed in a sailor's suit and I got to keep the sweets to myself. For anyone interested, this is a farm park with about half of the area used for rides aimed at younger children and paddocks for farm animals taking up most of the rest. Non-domestic animals are restricted to a falconry courtyard with the usual line up of peregrines, kestrels, barn owl, tawny owl, Eurasian eagle owl, red-tailed hawk, lanner falcon and a raven. The birds are kept in quite spacious aviaries as apposed to being tethered to a perch. There are enclosures for meerkat and porcupine near a large agricultural barn. The barn itself contains pens for pigs, sheep, alpaca etc. There is a room for small domestic pets which has two flight cages housing Greater Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Orange-winged Amazon, a hybrid cockatoo (C. alba x C. mollenis) and domestic budgies. Also with-in the barn is an area called 'Monkeys and crazy animals'. Here there are vivaria containing Golden gecko, Berber skink, Herman's tortoise, Golden Tree Frog, Fat-tailed Gerbil, Common and Geoffroy's Marmoset, Lesser Hedgehog Tenrec, a mouse labelled as Egyptian Spiny Mouse Acomys chudeaui and a lizard labelled Lacerta agama. There are also a number of inverts on show. So, no opossom, of course it might have been off show but there was no-one to ask so maybe I'll try again after the coronavirus business is over.
If the scientific name was accurate this will have been a rather more unusual and special species than Egyptian!
chudeaui is generally treated as a synonym of cahirinus - but whether one treats it as separate or lumped it is kind of a puzzle how they would have used the name on their signage. I think any website you looked at would either have it clearly as a synonym or as a distinct species with a separate common name. Even on Wikipedia the name is clearly labelled as a synonym. Their use of Lacerta agama is even more of a puzzle to me though, given that the name is outdated by over 200 years.
