What do possums eat?
Possums are marsupials, which means that they carry their young in a pouch.
The mother possum nourishes her babies via this pouch for about two weeks after the babies are born.
Possums eat many foods, but they especially love insects and small animals.
The mother possum does not always provide food for her young right away.
However, she visits them every other day or so to nurse and feed them.
Even though possums eat many insects and small animals, they do not always get their food from hunting and catching it themselves.
Often times the mother possum will bring back bugs that she finds to her babies inside the marsupium.
What Possums Eat
Possums eat a lot of food.
When possums are in the wild, they will often take their time eating and savor it until it is gone.
They eat many kinds of berries, plants, flowers, fruits, and nuts.
In general, possums do not chew their food very much but swallow it in chunks.
When possums are in the wild, they also spend their time eating and looking for food.
When they are done with their food, the possum will bury it or hide it so that they can come back to it later when they are hungry again.
Possums eat a lot of insects and small animals that roam around at night, such as mice and rats.
Some possums even eat dead fish or take food from other animals’ kills.
The possum has a long thin tongue that is good for catching insects off of trees and plants.
The possum is good at climbing trees, which helps the possum get to other food that is up high or hard to reach.
Possum Habits
The mother possum will nurse her babies every two weeks until they are about five months old.
Once the baby possums are fully grown and start eating solid foods, they will accompany their mother on hunting expeditions.
The mother possum will stay at the nest with her young each day while the father possum goes out to hunt for food.
Possums are nocturnal animals, which means that they sleep during the day and come out at night to search for food or look for mates.
They enjoy sleeping in trees because it gives them a good view of their surroundings and it keeps them safe from many predators.
The mother possum stays in the nest with the young, protecting them from other animals that want to eat them.
The father possum will travel back to the tree at nightfall after he has spent the day looking for food.
The parents are very protective of each other and their young.
Possums eat a lot of food because they are very active animals that spend most of the day searching for food, eating, and looking for mates.
Their feeding habits depend a lot on where they live and what kinds of plants and insects grow there.
Some possums prefer to eat meat while others love nuts and berries.
The possum is a very common visitor to gardens because it likes many kinds of flowers and fruits.
Check out our other animal FAQs here:
