Posted on 06/18/2020 3:47:56 PM PDT by 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...
(Excerpt) Read more at wideopenspaces.com ...
Can we let a few hundred roam in D.C. to deal with the bloodsuckers there?
Come to think of it, I haven't seen a tick in years.
I guess it is a possumability.
Chickens too
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!
Yup, they are good if weird little animals to have in the back 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.......
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.”
They have their own lake down in Texas.....Possum Kingdom Lake is just NW of Ft. Worth.
They’re great critters to have around if you have a garden.
Had a pet possum a long time ago. Amusing creatures.
There are no ticks in my yard and I do get the occasional Possum. Maybe I should thank them.
Cool song by The Toadies, “Possum Kingdom.”
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.
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.
Yeah, me and a friend trapped a possum once in a Hav-a-heart trap. That thing about them “playing possum?” BS.
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.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.