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Possum

I read an article yesterday that stated possums are tick magnets and that they eat as many as 4,000 ticks a week. Seems like a high number to me? Anyone ever heard this? If it's true , I'll have a whole new respect for the possum!

Coyotes have taken out the grey fox reduced red fox numbers rarely see stray cats in woods but the slow dumb nasty possum just carrys on.

i believe it- because a few years ago i moved and the grass/tye tye was all grown up around the house... and even after we cut it there was a ton of ticks (which is like my worst nightmare) and before long i had possums coming around since id throw out scraps out for my chickens... and after we started seeing possums we didnt have anymore ticks.

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Internet facts

Can you guess what animal found throughout the United States is turning out to be an unsung hero helping to prevent the spread of Lyme Disease? A hint it's a marsupial, just like a kangaroo.


Keesing: Well, opossums are unusual in that they turn out to eat ticks, to kill ticks at a really, really high rate. We found that the average opossum kills thousands of ticks every week wandering through the forest.

Felicia Keesing is a biologist at Bard College and an Adjunct Scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies.

Keesing: So, the opossum wanders through the woods and ticks get on them just like they might get on any mammal wandering through the woods. But the opossums groom them off and kill them in the process of the tick wandering around trying to find a place to feed. And so, if an opossum got a hundred ticks on it, say, about ninety-six of those would get killed in the process of trying to find a place to feed on that opossum.

It's a practical, positive thing that I think makes people feel hopeful about combating tick numbers and also good about protecting such a charismatic little creature.

I should say that we don't think opossums are unique in this way. We suspect that other medium sized mammals have this effect as well. We just can't test them in the lab the way we can with opossums. With all of those creatures, the best way to have them be abundant, is to have lots of natural areas intact - bit natural spaces, because we know that those increase the number of species and the average size of creatures that are living in them.

We found that areas of forest that have high species diversity - so lot's of different kinds of animals have much lower risk of Lyme disease. That means that the ticks that live in those areas have much less likelihood of carrying the bacteria that cause Lyme disease.

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more......

At night, when you catch sight of an opossum in your car headlights, you are allowed to think, "That is one ugly little animal."

But what opossums lack in looks, they make up in originality.

They're America's only babies-in-the pouch marsupial.

They're a southern species -- proper name Virginia opossum -- that's adapted to New England winters.

They're one of the oldest species of mammal around, having waddled past dinosaurs.

They eat grubs and insects and even mice, working over the environment like little vacuum cleaners.

"They really eat whatever they find," said Laura Simon, wildlife ecologist with the U.S. Humane Society.

And they're an animal whose first line of defense includes drooling and a wicked hissing snarl -- a bluff -- followed by fainting dead away and "playing possum."

"They are just interesting critters," said Mark Clavette, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

And now ecologists have learned something else about opossums. They're a sort of magnet when it comes to riding the world of black-legged ticks, which spread Lyme disease.

"Don't hit opossums if they've playing dead in the road," said Richard Ostfeld, of the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y.

Ostfeld is forest ecologist and an expert on the environmental elements of infectious diseases like Lyme disease.

Several years ago, scientists decided to learn about the part different mammals play in the spread of the ticks and the disease.

They tested six species -- white-footed mice, chipmunks, squirrels, opossums and veerys and catbirds -- by capturing and caging them, and then exposing each test subject to 100 ticks.

What they found, is that of the six, the opossums were remarkably good at getting rid of the ticks -- much more so that any of the others.

"I had no suspicion they'd be such efficient tick-killing animals," Ostfeld said.

Indeed, among other opossum traits, there is this: They groom themselves fastidiously, like cats. If they find a tick, they lick it off and swallow it. (The research team on the project went through droppings to find this out. All praise to those who study possum poop.)

Extrapolating from their findings, Ostfeld said, the team estimated that in one season, an opossum can kill about 5,000 ticks.

What ecologists are learning is how complex the interaction of ticks and mammals can be.

For example, foxes probably serve as a host for ticks seeking a blood meal. But foxes are great at killing white-footed mice -- the species in the environment credited with being the chief reservoir of the Lyme bacteria.

Likewise, Ostfeld said, opossums, waddling around at night, pick up lots of ticks. Some ticks end up getting their blood meal from the possum. But more than 90 percent of them ended up being groomed away and swallowed.

"They're net destroyers of ticks," Ostfeld said.

For Simon, of the U.S. Humane Society, the Cary Institute research is a welcome justification to just leave opossums be.

"People are so hard on them," she said.

That's in part because people think oppossums might be rabid when they drool and hiss and carry on when threatened. In fact, opossums are resistant to rabies.

Meanwhile, they are not particularly pretty. People who "ooh" and "aah" over fawns and bluebirds may not extend the same love to pokey animals with triangular heads, white faces and naked tails.

"I tell people 'We can't all be beautiful,' " Simon said.

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Doug Robinson

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NITECH GRCH ROBINSON'S OATKA VALLEY ANNIE (BLUSPECK DAUGHTER)
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CH PR ROBINSON'S OATKA VALLEY JUNEBUG - (GRNITECH PKC CH RIVER BOTTOM'S CRACKER JACK X NITECH GRCH ROBINSON'S OATKA VALLEY ANNIE)

If they eat that many ticks they should be on the endangered species list around here because them Virginia Possums are everywhere if we only had as many coons as Possums than we would be going somewhere

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There seems to be more possums in my area than I can ever remember seeing. I hope it's true about them controlling the tick population because we just recently started getting deer ticks here.

Doug

Doug, thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge. With tick borne illnesses on the rise I thought it was a great fact to share on this board. Let them grinners live!

Re: more......

quote:

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Originally posted by Doug Robinson
....And they're an animal whose first line of defense includes drooling and a wicked hissing snarl -- a bluff -- followed by fainting dead away and "playing possum.".....

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Re: Re: more......

quote:

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Originally posted by Richard Lambert
Apparantly he has never poked one with his foot.

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Re: Re: more......

quote:

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Originally posted by Richard Lambert
Apparantly he has never poked one with his foot.

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__________________
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. ~~ Thomas Jefferson

"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have"

Thomas Jefferson

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."
Thomas Jefferson

I think if they ate that many, southern N.Y wouldn’t be infested with ticks the way it is now ! We don’t have grinners up here on the top of NY .

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