What Type Of Animal Is An Opossum

 The Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana), also known equally possum, is both a benefit and a nuisance to landowners. Learn its characteristics, behavior, habitat, diet, benefits and uses, and damage and control techniques.

The Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana) is the only marsupial native to the United states of america.

Known widely for playing dead when frightened, the opossum is a creature with a unique place amongst Alabama's wildlife. Equally other animals are vanishing from forests in the United States, opossums appear to be flourishing due to their remarkable power to adapt.

Characteristics

The opossum is the only marsupial, or pouched mammal, that is native to the U.s.. Much similar kangaroos, opossums give birth to relatively undeveloped immature that consummate development inside the female parent's marsupium (pouch) located on her underside between her hind legs. Only females accept marsupia. In females that take not had a litter, the pouch is small and not fully formed. Once a female is meaning, the pouch enlarges to ready for the birth of her young. The female parent can close the pouch to protect her offspring once they have been born.

Females usually begin reproducing during their first yr of life. Most tin can produce two litters in that year, one in wintertime and one in spring, although some may produce three. Following a short gestation period of only 13 days, the immature are born. At birth, immature counterbalance less than a hundredth of an ounce each and are about the size of a honeybee. The young climb to the marsupium without aid, using their sense of olfactory property. Considering opossums can give birth to equally many as 20 offspring at once and have an average of but 13 nipples, not all of the young will survive. The only ones to survive are those that are able to latch onto a milk-producing nipple within the pouch (and non all nipples produce milk). On average, simply about vii young survive.

Afterward about 2 months, the young are sufficiently adult to venture outside of the mother's pouch. After this, they can exist seen hitching a ride on her back, although they do not hang from her tail suspended over her dorsum as is popularly believed. Young opossums disperse and are able to fend for themselves at the historic period of three to 4 months.

Behavior

possums are terrestrial, meaning that they are grounddwelling, simply they also spend a significant amount of time in copse. They apply their prehensile tails to help them climb. However, in contrast to popular sociology and cartoons, opossums rarely hang by their tails, and they do not sleep in this position. Opossums are alone creatures simply are not territorial. Several opossums, both male and female, may have overlapping home ranges. Males do not seem to tolerate other males equally much as they do females. Opossums are nocturnal, preferring to forage at dark rather than in the daytime. Opossums practice not hide and fifty-fifty in the northernmost function of their range tin can be found searching for food during the warmest part of the day during winter.

Despite their many interesting behaviors, opossums are renowned for one in particular: playing dead when faced with danger. It is unclear at this time as to the true significance of this behavior. When threatened, opossums appear to get into a catatonic-like state. They drool and exude a noxious substance from their anal glands. This behavior helps keep predators from attacking. Although intriguing, this method of defense is not the well-nigh mutual method that opossums practice. Most often, opossums try to escape when confronted with danger. If cornered, opossums are likely to gape and hiss or growl, revealing their fifty teeth, instead of playing possum.

Habitat

The opossum is a common inhabitant of North America. Native to Central America and the southern U.s.a., opossums take expanded their range northward over the past 100 years. Now, their range extends as far north as Ontario, Canada. They occur east to the Atlantic coast and west into the Cracking Plains, mainly where copse and water occur together to form their natural habitat, or anywhere the presence of humans can support them. Populations as well exist along the Pacific coast from California to Washington, where they have been introduced. From in that location, opossums expanded their range northward into British Columbia, Canada. Colorado, Idaho, Arizona, and New Mexico besides take populations of opossums, although there is some disagreement almost whether or not these populations were introduced. Their northward expansion is believed to be limited past common cold atmospheric condition because in northern parts of their range, opossums suffer from starvation and frostbite on their ears and tails.

Opossums have a abode range of 50 to 300 acres and ofttimes alive in forested areas with brushy cover and available water. Open areas usually are avoided, although opossums may make trips into these places to forage. Opossums can live in rural, urban, and suburban areas, adapting easily to life amid humans. Although they practise non hibernate, they will create sleeping dens in cavities of trees or logs, sheds, barns, piles of building materials, and crevices in rocks. Sometimes they attempt to den in attics or under porches.

Diet

Opossums are opportunists. They will eat almost anything. Their nutrition includes fruits, such equally persimmons, apples, plums, blackberries, hackberries, wild grapes, and various basics, merely most of their diet consists of animals, including crustaceans, reptiles, amphibians, birds, pocket-sized mammals, carrion (animals that are already expressionless), and eggs. Insects, in item, are a staple food for opossums. They volition likewise eat gardens and crops (peculiarly corn) on occasion, only they are not considered to exist a significant threat to crops. They also accept been known to raid chicken houses. In urban and suburban settings, they scavenge garbage and bird seeds, and, not surprisingly, they also bask pet food. Many people accept gone onto the porch to feed their dogs and cats only to find an opossum cleaning out the pet bowl.

Opossums are also food for many other types of animals. Foxes, coyotes, bobcats, and great-horned owls are mutual predators of the opossum. And permit's non forget that humans sometimes eat opossums too.

Benefits and Uses

As with many wildlife species that share space with humans, opossums may be considered as pests, but they do provide some significant benefits. For one, the opossum is an important fur-bearing species. Although its pelts are not as loftier in need as those of some other species, they can be used every bit a substitute for more expensive furs. In Alabama, opossums are classified as fur-bearers and game and can be trapped and hunted in accord with state laws and regulations. Opossum hunting traditionally has been an entertaining sport for those who bask hunting with hounds. The 'possum hunt historically has engaged aristocrats such as Franklin D. Roosevelt.

At i time, it was much more mutual to chase opossums for food than for sport. "Possum and taters" has been a well-known and inexpensive treat. For regulations on trapping and hunting, refer to the current Alabama Regulations Relating to Game, Fish and Fur- Bearing Animals, available at the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources website (world wide web. dcnr.state.al.u.s.a./).

Some other benefit opossums provide is pest command since ii major components of the opossum's nutrition are insects and rodents. Opossum consumption of large numbers of insects and rodents therefore may help control damage to gardens and lawns. Because carrion is besides a component of their diet, opossums may play an important role in the delicate rest of nature as a cleanup coiffure.

Opossums are too of item involvement in the medical field due to their rapid development, and studying them may provide insight into the care of premature babies and growth of organs. In addition, opossums take a natural resistance to snake venom due to the presence of a protein in their blood known as lethal toxin-neutralizing factor (LTNF). This protein has allowed researchers to observe a better way to care for homo snake-bite victims, and the treatment is now produced synthetically.

Direction

Opossums are adaptable animals and can live in a multifariousness of habitats, both natural and homo made. Because opossums are habitat generalists, trivial encouragement is needed to concenter them to an surface area. Full general backyard-management strategies used for alluring other native wild animals, such as creating den sites, planting natural food sources, and increasing access to water, will benefit opossums. Brushy areas, wood piles, and stacks of rocks provide first-class cover for many species of wildlife. Sometime snags (continuing expressionless trees) and fallen logs ofttimes provide denning cavities and can be left every bit they occur. Native plants such as crabapples, persimmons, blackberries, and hackberries provide natural food sources to many species.

Considering opossums are and then adaptable to varying environments and sometimes cull to alive shut to humans, nonetheless, the trouble may not be how to create meliorate habitat for opossums, simply how to command them.

Damage and Control

Opossums opportunistically prey upon turkey and quail eggs, which may crusade business concern for wildlife managers. Contrary to public opinion and perception, however, predation on nests by opossums, and other medium- sized mammals (such every bit raccoons and skunks), is not the crusade for low populations of game.

Opossums do occasionally swallow chicken eggs, chickens, and ingather items. When they den in houses, sheds,
and barns, they tin impairment belongings by creating or enlarging entry holes, tearing insulation and other soft items during denning activities, chewing on wires and water lines, and defecating in unacceptable locations.

These damages tin can be costly. In addition, opossums sometimes eat and scatter garbage and consume food left for pets.

Opossums frequently are viewed as a threat to people and pets because they hiss when cornered, but they rarely follow through with the bluff. They oft are believed to deport diseases transferable to humans and pets; even so, they show a remarkable resistance to many viruses and rarely contract rabies, parvovirus, distemper, or feline hepatitis, which are common in other mammals. Unfortunately, they practice carry one type of parasite, Sarcocystis neurona, that can cause a serious affliction known as equine protozoal myeloencephalitis (EPM) in horses. They may as well carry ticks, fleas, roundworms, and other common parasites.

The first, and easiest, style to deter opossums is to remove whatever is attracting them. Bring in pet foods during the night, or, if y'all store them outside, go on them in metal bins that latch. Place garbage in bins on the morning of pickup, and exist sure to close the lids securely. Shut off any access points to potential denning areas, such as attics, garages, and crawl spaces. Remove any brushy areas or piles of wood and rocks around the chiliad, and plug up any obvious holes that the opossums may exist using. In summer, remove any available sources of water, such as bird baths, which may bring opossums into your m overnight (these can be replaced in the morning). Also, big dogs usually discourage opossums from approaching.

If you lot find that none of these deportment controls the problem, there are other options that may be useful. Pest-control or fauna-removal services in your area will remove opossums for a fee. By Alabama regulation, property owners may remove ane opossum per impairment incident without acquiring a special accept, capture, or kill let. If you are in an area that permits belch of firearms, opossums can exist removed by shooting.

Trapping is a especially efficient strategy for removing opossums, but caution must be used during trapping to avoid personal injury and unintentional capturing of pets (both yours and your neighbors') and other species of wild fauna. Leghold traps (No. 11⁄2) and live traps (at to the lowest degree 2' × 8" × 8") are appropriate and tin can be prepare easily. In one case the opossum is trapped, information technology must be destroyed or relocated. Information technology is illegal to relocate opossums beyond county lines or drainage basins due to the possibility of spreading disease. However, relocating problem individuals inside the county and drainage basin will simply shift the problem to another area, and the survival rate of relocated animals frequently is depression.

Opossums are at home in residential areas and may crusade problems for homeowners.

It is illegal to keep an opossum equally a pet. If you lot observe an injured or orphaned opossum, do not attempt to capture the creature. It is all-time to exit information technology solitary and allow nature to take its course. If y'all have questions concerning acceptable or suggested forms of removal, please contact your local Cooperative Extension agent for assistance.

Conclusion

The remarkable Virginia opossum is here to stay, and equally the Southeast becomes more populated, more contact between people and opossums will occur. Homeowners can learn to avoid contact with opossums and therefore reduce potential conflicts and minimize impairment.

Although it may not be obvious to some people, opossums are a unique member of Alabama's wildlife and play an important role in the office of the ecosystem. As Aldo Leopold, the father of wild fauna management, once stated, "The commencement pace in intelligent tinkering is to keep all the parts." The Virginia opossum is i of these important parts.

Download a PDF of The Virginia Opossum: Our Simply Native Marsupial, ANR-1414

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Amber D. Marable, one-time Extension 4-H Agent, and Mark Smith, Extension Specialist, Professor, Forestry and Wild animals Sciences, Auburn University

Revised May 2022, The Virginia Opossum: Our Simply Native Marsupial, ANR-1414

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Source: https://www.aces.edu/blog/topics/wildlife/the-virginia-opossum-our-only-native-marsupial/

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