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Shrew opossums (also known as rat opossums or caenolestids) are about the size of a small rat (9–14 cm long), with thin limbs, a long, pointed snout and a slender, hairy tail. They are largely carnivorous, being active hunters of insects , earthworms , and small vertebrates.
Opossums eat insects, rodents, birds, eggs, frogs, plants, fruits and grain. Some species may eat the skeletal remains of rodents and roadkill animals to fulfill their calcium requirements. [45] In captivity, opossums will eat practically anything including dog and cat food, livestock fodder and discarded human food scraps and waste.
The common opossum (Didelphis marsupialis), also called the southern or black-eared opossum [2] or gambá, and sometimes called a possum, is a marsupial species living from the northeast of Mexico to Bolivia (reaching the coast of the South Pacific Ocean to the central coast of Peru), including Trinidad and Tobago and the Windwards in the Caribbean, [2] where it is called manicou. [3]
Typical rat poison bait station (Germany, 2010) Rodenticides are chemicals made and sold for the purpose of killing rodents . While commonly referred to as " rat poison ", rodenticides are also used to kill mice , woodchucks , chipmunks , porcupines , nutria , beavers , [ 1 ] and voles .
According to some, raccoon or opossum are preferable to squirrel, and the taste is improved by aging and marinating the meat in roadside oil and grease before preparing a stew. [15] Alternative recipes for roadkill include raccoon kebabs, moose-and-squirrel meat balls, Pennsylvania possum pot pie and skunk skillet stew.
A traditional method of preparation is baking, sometimes in a pie or pastry, [65] though at present "possum pie" most often refers to a sweet confection containing no meat of any kind. [ 66 ] Around the turn of the 20th century, the opossum was the subject of numerous songs, including "Carve dat Possum", a minstrel song written in 1875 by Sam ...
Gray short-tailed opossums are relatively small animals, with a superficial resemblance to voles.In the wild they have head-body length of 12 to 18 cm (4.7 to 7.1 in) and weigh 58 to 95 grams (2.0 to 3.4 oz); males are larger than females. [5]
Didelphimorphia is the order of common opossums of the Western Hemisphere. Opossums probably diverged from the basic South American marsupials in the late Cretaceous or early Paleocene . They are small to medium-sized marsupials, about the size of a large house cat , with a long snout and prehensile tail.