VALLEY PARK • Meet Darwin: A surprisingly fluffy resident at World Bird Sanctuary in St. Louis County that might just change minds about one of the most maligned native species around — the opossum.

“A lot of people just think opossums are gross,” said the sanctuary’s curator of animals, Kelsey McCord. “But then, have they met Darwin?” she added, looking down at what has become one of the nature park’s most popular creatures.

The 12½-pound opossum has simple tastes. He’s a lover of grapes, back scratches and waddling around the sanctuary while being led on a little blue harness.

The sanctuary adopted Darwin, a Virginia opossum, in July after someone found him and his sister on the side of the road in Lincoln County with no mother in sight. But the rescuer left the two opossums in her car all day in the July heat. The female died, and Darwin needed 24 hours of fluid shots from a volunteer animal rescuer in Lincoln County to recover before he was turned over to the sanctuary. Staff think he was left with permanent brain damage.