DID YOU KNOW THAT OPOSSUMS EAT VIRTUALLY ALL THE TICKS IN YOUR YARD?

WideOpenSpaces ^ | February 3, 2020 | Craig Raleigh

[CheshireTheCat]

...The opposum's ability to munch down on the annoying blood suckers took even researchers by surprise.

"I had no suspicion they'd be such efficient tick-killing animals," said Richard Ostfeld, of the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York. "Don't hit opossums if they've playing dead in the road."

Opossums are crazy, fastidious, grooming animals like cats, and when they find a tick, it's right down the hatch. Researchers found many digested ticks in the feces of cooperative opossums. Cheers to the guy who got that job!

Ostfeld said that one opossum can kill and eat some 5,000 ticks in a single season...

[CheshireTheCat]

Here is a feel good story. Say hi to your friendly neighborhood opossum.

[rktman]

There's ticks in my yard?😷😵📴

[kaehurowing]

Can we let a few hundred roam in D.C. to deal with the bloodsuckers there?

[RoosterRedux]

I've got possums who come up at night to eat the leftover cat food on my patio (along with a family of raccoons and a couple of gray fox pups). I've never seen them (the possums) nibbling their way around my yard but perhaps they do their work at night when I'm asleep.

Come to think of it, I haven't seen a tick in years.

[GreyFriar]

I guess it is a possumability.

[2banana]

Chickens too

[entropy12]

May be, but they dig up chunks of lawn to look for worms.
After opossum attack, my yard looked like a tractor had ploughed through. I bought a trap and caught the suckers!

[BlackAdderess]

Yup, they are good if weird little animals to have in the back yard :)

[Hot Tabasco]

There's ticks in my yard?

There ain't no ticks on me..

There ain't no ticks on me....

There might be ticks on some of those chicks but there ain't no ticks on me.......

[Dr. Sivana]

It’s true. I knew a well-educated creature of this sort, though we could only converse in Latin.

I asked him which creature is most efficient at killing ticks?

He stated, quite confidently, “Possum.”

[Ben Hecks]

They have their own lake down in Texas.....Possum Kingdom Lake is just NW of Ft. Worth.

[Fungi]

Once saw a baby opossum in a field, probably an orphan. The little punk was not even five inches long and he was baring his teeth and hissing at me. One swift stomp and I could have killed the little bastard but I didn't.

[Veggie Todd]

They’re great critters to have around if you have a garden.

[gundog]

Had a pet ‘possum a long time ago. Amusing creatures.

[yarddog]

There are no ticks in my yard and I do get the occasional Possum. Maybe I should thank them.

[Trailerpark Badass]

Cool song by The Toadies, “Possum Kingdom.”

[pnut22]

I have the same cat food eating possum. When my dog barks the possum runs.. kinda. He hides in a shrub but doesn’t seem to realize his tail is sticking out.

[SamAdams76]

When I was growing up, it was said that dragonflies would eat mosquitoes. So we used to catch them with butterfly nets and put them in our bedrooms.

[Trailerpark Badass]

Yeah, me and a friend trapped a possum once in a Hav-a-heart trap. That thing about them “playing possum?” BS.

[agatheringstorm]

I was driving home one day in a pretty good rain storm. I got off one highway to get onto another and this exit was a pretty long overpass. As I was reaching the top of the overpass, there on top of the concrete railing was a large, rain soaked possum peering down over the edge of the railing. It looked like it was thinking about jumping, and their eyesight is so poor, there’s no way he could see the highway some 30 feet below. I’ve always remembered that strange sight and wondered if he did jump.