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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.
Newly hatched young also instinctively show this behaviour when rats try to eat them. [12] In mammals, the Virginia opossum (commonly known simply as possums) is perhaps the best known example of defensive thanatosis. "Playing possum" is an idiomatic phrase which means "pretending to be dead". [13]
Like raccoons, opossums can be found in urban environments, where they eat pet food, rotten fruit, and human garbage. They also are considered a common predator of poultry farming in North America. [ 59 ] [ 60 ] Research suggests that proximity to humans causes an increase in body size for opossums living in or near urban environments. [ 61 ]
Like most possums, the common brushtail possum is nocturnal. It is mainly a folivore, but has been known to eat small mammals such as rats. In most Australian habitats, eucalyptus leaves are a significant part of the diet, but rarely the sole item eaten.
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]
"Your local neighborhood raccoon, rat, or possum would love to dig up your garden and munch on that banana peel," says Farley. It's not only rodents that you have to consider, either. It's not ...
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.
Rat tunnels, which may have an opening that’s 3 inches in diameter, are found in less conspicuous spots, ... While you may be tempted to blame other animals such as opossums or snakes, ...