Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Opossums are an ancient species, and eat all manner of bugs, vermin and rotting vegetables. Meet the opossum, nature's friendly sanitation worker Skip to main content
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.
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. [ 58 ] [ 59 ] Research suggests that proximity to humans causes an increase in body size for opossums living in or near urban environments. [ 60 ]
The "Spanish fly", Lytta vesicatoria, has been considered to have medicinal, aphrodisiac, and other properties. Human interactions with insects include both a wide variety of uses, whether practical such as for food, textiles, and dyestuffs, or symbolic, as in art, music, and literature, and negative interactions including damage to crops and extensive efforts to control insect pests.
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]
The human population exploits a large number of non-human animal species for food, both of domesticated livestock species in animal husbandry and, mainly at sea, by hunting wild species. [ 6 ] [ 7 ] Marine fish of many species, such as herring , cod , tuna , mackerel and anchovy , are caught and killed commercially, and can form an important ...
Unlike most other marsupials, the gray short-tailed opossum does not have a true pouch. The scientific name Monodelphis is derived from Greek and means "single womb" (referring to the lack of a pouch) and the Latin word domestica which means "domestic" (chosen because of the species' habit of entering human dwellings). [3]
This opossum is mostly arboreal, but it may forage on the ground for food. [2] This species has been recorded at only six locations, but it is not considered to be threatened because its habitat is relatively secure from deforestation and other threats at this time. [2] This mouse opossum does not have a pouch.