What Do Opossums Eat? Diet of North America's Marsupial

What does a Virginia opossum eat?

The Virginia opossum is an opportunist. Instead of hunting one kind of prey, it wanders at night with its nose to the ground and eats whatever is easy to catch, find or scavenge. Biologists call this a generalist diet, and it is one reason the opossum thrives from Central America to southern Canada.

Studies of stomach contents from opossums across the United States give a good picture of what they eat. According to a summary by Animal Diversity Web, a typical diet contains:

In some places, reptiles and amphibians made up as much as 22.5 percent of the diet, snails and slugs up to 10 percent, and pet food and garbage up to 9 percent each. The numbers vary a lot from one study to the next, which is itself a sign of how flexible opossums are.

Animal food: insects, worms and small animals

Insects such as beetles, grasshoppers and crickets are among the most common animal foods, especially in the warm months. Opossums also eat many earthworms, snails, slugs, crayfish and spiders, which they find by sniffing through leaf litter and turning over debris.

Vertebrate prey includes mice, voles, young rabbits, frogs, toads, salamanders, lizards, snakes, fish and ground-nesting birds and their eggs. Opossums also raid poultry houses for eggs and chicks when they can get in.

A good share of the mammal remains in opossum stomachs probably comes from carrion rather than live prey. Opossums are slow and are not skilled hunters of fast animals, but they are excellent scavengers. They eat dead deer, rabbits and roadkill, which is also why so many are hit by cars on roadsides.

Do opossums eat snakes and survive venom?

Yes. Opossums kill and eat snakes, including venomous pit vipers such as rattlesnakes, copperheads and cottonmouths. They are highly resistant to the venom of these snakes, an ability shared by several other opossum species in the Americas.

Part of the explanation lies in their blood. Opossum blood contains a protein called lethal toxin-neutralizing factor, which binds and blocks some of the toxins in snake venom. A 2011 study by Sharon Jansa and Robert Voss also found that a blood-clotting protein targeted by viper venom has evolved unusually fast in opossums that eat pit vipers, which may help protect them. Resistance does not mean total immunity, and opossums are not known to be resistant to all snake venoms.

The opossum is not alone in this. The honey badger of Africa and Asia is famous for a similar tolerance, explored in are honey badgers immune to snake venom?.

Plant food: fruit, seeds and grain

Plant foods become important from late summer into early winter. Opossums eat blackberries, raspberries, wild grapes, apples, acorns, beechnuts, corn and other grain, seeds, bulbs, grasses and leaves. Persimmons are a favorite in autumn, and opossums are known to gather under persimmon trees to eat fallen fruit.

Because they swallow seeds whole and pass them undamaged, opossums help spread plants such as persimmon and pawpaw, carrying seeds away from the parent tree. In this way, a scavenger also works as a gardener of the forest.

How does the opossum diet change through the year?

In spring and summer, opossums eat many insects, earthworms, snails, fresh leaves and the first fruits. This is also when they raise their young, and females need plenty of protein for milk.

In autumn they feed heavily on fruit, nuts and grain and build fat reserves. In winter, when insects and fruit are gone, small mammals, birds and carrion make up a larger part of the diet. Opossums do not hibernate, but in severe cold they may stay in their dens for several days and live on stored fat.

What do opossums eat in towns and suburbs?

Suburbs and city edges offer opossums an easy living. They feed on fallen fruit, insects and snails in gardens, compost piles, spilled birdseed under feeders, garbage and food left outside for pets. Studies have found that urban opossums can be heavier than rural ones, likely because of this extra food.

Despite rumors, opossums do not attack cats or dogs, and they are not a danger to people. They are shy and usually avoid confrontations, relying on bluffing or playing dead when threatened.

Do opossums eat ticks?

A popular internet claim says that a single opossum eats about 5,000 ticks a season. This figure comes from an extrapolation of laboratory grooming studies, and a study of wild opossum stomachs in Illinois found no ticks at all. The details are in do opossums eat ticks?.