Possums

[ThatOwlWoman]

Where's Billy been lately? Here's an amazing thing about possums. We knew they eat a lot of ticks. But did you know they also provide personal service with tick removal?

"The photo, posted by the Vermont Wildlife Coalition, shows an opossum pulling ticks off a deer's face.

Tick infestations are serious in the dry months and have even killed young deer.

And possums love to eat ticks.

"We found that the average opossum kills thousands of ticks every week wandering through the forest," says Felicia Keesing, a biologist at Bard College and an Adjunct Scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies.

"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."

Opossums are the unsung heroes in curbing Lyme disease.

https://www.sunnyskyz.com/blog/2945...OLj3VTz6TgWqbwlVzFKRcqfjBzEmj1hBbzg_Ho6aRHzBM

 

[Judy Johnstone]

Where's Billy been lately? Here's an amazing thing about possums. We knew they eat a lot of ticks. But did you know they also provide personal service with tick removal?

"The photo, posted by the Vermont Wildlife Coalition, shows an opossum pulling ticks off a deer's face.

Tick infestations are serious in the dry months and have even killed young deer.

And possums love to eat ticks.

"We found that the average opossum kills thousands of ticks every week wandering through the forest," says Felicia Keesing, a biologist at Bard College and an Adjunct Scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies.

"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."

Opossums are the unsung heroes in curbing Lyme disease.

https://www.sunnyskyz.com/blog/2945...OLj3VTz6TgWqbwlVzFKRcqfjBzEmj1hBbzg_Ho6aRHzBM

Possums were in Ohio thousands of years before any current native animal ,a book on Ohio history states.
How did a marsupial end up in North America.
All others are down Australia ,New Zealand way.
A missing link?

 

[ThatOwlWoman]

Possums were in Ohio thousands of years before any current native animal ,a book on Ohio history states.
How did a marsupial end up in North America.
All others are down Australia ,New Zealand way.
A missing link?

Or possibly we had more species of marsupials, that died out? Horses originated in the New World but were extirpated by the time the Old World voyagers showed up.

 

[Trumpet]

The Possum is a new comer to my state, and only present in the southern part of NH so far, but I'm glad to see them here.

 

[Cypress]

Possums were in Ohio thousands of years before any current native animal ,a book on Ohio history states.
How did a marsupial end up in North America.
All others are down Australia ,New Zealand way.
A missing link?

My recollection is that possums evolved in south america and migrated to north America when the Panama land bridge formed

 

[jimmymccready]

Possums are great neighbors. Momma Possum lived in our under crawl space for almost ten winters. Occasionally, we would see her and that year's litter at night wondering in the acre we owned. When she was there, vermin were not. And possums don't carry rabies. Great neighbors. The cats will not mess with them.