Florida Critters: Possum
Florida’s only marsupial, a mammal, having a pouch for carrying the young, is the Virginia opossum. Opossums have grayish-white fur and are about the size of a house cat. They have long naked tails, small naked ears, and a pointed snout.
Opossums are skilled climbers, often seen in trees and on the tops of fences. Females produce at least two litters a year. After gestation, the 7 to 11 young crawl into the female’s pouch where they can nurse. At about 80 days, the young leave the pouch and often ride on the mother’s back. Young are weaned at 95 to 100 days and disperse to be on their own shortly afterward.
Because opossums are one of the largest nuisance rodent species, they tend to cause more widespread damage than rats or mice, even though they live in significantly smaller groups. Most infestations consist of one to two opossums or an opossum mother and her young.
Opossums may rip shingles, siding, or insulation with their teeth and claws. Opossum feces can also leave large stains and may carry diseases like coccidiosis and tuberculosis.
Carry Rabies?
Contrary to popular belief, opossums seldom carry rabies because the animals have an unusually low temperature for mammals that kill the disease. Any hissing and drooling are generally a defense mechanism rather than a symptom of a contagious disease.
Opossums can also be challenging to get rid of on your own because they are not easily scared or intimidated. If their hissing display does not work on a predator, the opossum may either play dead or become aggressive. Mother opossums, in particular, may pick a fight to protect what they perceive as their territory.
But before deciding what to do, I highly suggest hiring someone to remove and relocate these animals humanely. Possums, like many other small and medium-sized mammals, are hosts for ticks looking for a blood meal. But opossums are remarkably efficient at eliminating foraging ticks.
“In a way, opossums are the unsung heroes in the Lyme Disease epidemic.”
Rick Ostfeld, the author of a book on Lyme disease ecology and a senior scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, explains:
“Because many ticks try to feed on opossums and few of them survive the experience. Opossums are extraordinarily good groomers it turns out – we would never have thought that ahead of time – but they kill the vast majority – more than 95% percent of the ticks that try to feed on them. So these opossums are walking around the forest floor, hoovering up ticks right and left, killing over 90% of these things, and so they are protecting our health.”