What is the Opossums's Diet?

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Like most other mammals, opossums are omnivores (plant and animal eaters) and they are quite opportunistic in nature. This means that they consume whatever is available per time, whether plant, animal or even carrions. They eat a wide range of foods from fruits to vegetables, small vertebrates and invertebrates, dead and decomposing matters; so getting food is often easy for them. However, when spoiled for choice, they are bound to select the sweet and strong-smelling foods among others.



Some animals such as snails, mice, rats, lizards, toads, frogs, earthworms, slugs, crayfish, small birds, larvae, and insects constitute the opossum’s favorites. On the plant side, they enjoy bananas, apples, grains, berries, vegetables, carrots, nuts and mushrooms. Being scavengers also, they forage for dead or decomposing matter, most of which are road-killed animals, and they as well often get killed by vehicles in the process.

Foraging at Night
Opossums are nocturnal animals and as such they forage in the night to get food. This is with the exception of winter months, when they can be seen actively looking for food during the day. Although opossums are not blind and are even capable of seeing objects that are a bit far from them, they depend more on their highly sensitive olfactory system to smell foods from a distance. They would also feel the food before consuming it.

Opossums, especially those ones in the wild have a habit of climbing trees to eat eggs and small birds that are still inside the nests.

Unlike some animals that possess the ability to accumulate large quantities of fat within their bodies in summer in preparation for the cold winter months when they hibernate, opossums only accumulate a negligible amount of fat during summer, hence the need for them to actively forage all through the year.

Based on various studies on this marsupial, availability of food is a major reason for their choice of living area, and once the food is no more available, they move on to somewhere close by with food.

Sadly though, opossums are relatively slow in stepping up to the food source and they suffer a high mortality in situations of food scarcity.

In conclusion, opossums are opportunistic omnivores that are hardly picky as to what they eat and availability of food is the major determinant of their burrow sites.

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