Australia has its fair share of oversized arachnids, but even down under, we’ve never seen a spider as fearsome as this. A video taken recently in the Amazon shows a tarantula likely 10 inches in diameter, making a meal out of a young opossum. The auspicious encounter was recorded by biologists working with the University of Michigan, studying rare predator-prey interactions in the lowland rainforests of the Andean foothills, Fox News reports. “This is an underappreciated source of mortality among vertebrates,” Daniel Rabosky, an evolutionary biologist at U of M who leads a team of researchers to the Amazon rainforest about once or twice a year, said in an online statement. “A surprising amount of death of small vertebrates in the Amazon is likely due to arthropods such as big spiders and centipedes.” To read more on this story, click here:Massive Tarantula Dragging Opossum To Its Doom Is Pure Nightmare Fuel
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Get ready for your daily dose of cuteness overload. Meet Starfish. She’s a sweet li’l possum with a face for the silver screen. She loves to play with her cat siblings, attack her food with her candy corn teeth, and travel all over the country with her mom, Ally. The young opossum crossed paths with Ally after she lost her tail as a baby. Since opossums are not typically pets, the reason she now lives with Ally is because without a tail she cannot do some of the things wild opossums need to do to stay alive. Tails are important to these animals because they use them for balance, carrying nesting materials, and climbing. To read more on this story, click here:Watching This Pet Possum Eat Broccoli Is The Cute Fix You Need Today
Ft. Walton Beach, Florida - An opossum that apparently drank bourbon after breaking into a Florida liquor store sobered up at a wildlife rescue center and was released unharmed. Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge officials say the opossum was brought in by a Fort Walton Beach, Florida, police officer on Nov. 24. A liquor store employee found the animal next to a broken and empty bottle of bourbon. "A worker there found the opossum up on a shelf next to a cracked open bottle of liquor with nothing in it," said Michelle Pettis, a technician at the refuge. "She definitely wasn't fully acting normal." Pettis told the Northwest Florida Daily News the female opossum appeared disoriented, was excessively salivating and was pale. The staff pumped the marsupial full of fluids and cared for her as she sobered up. "We loaded her up with fluids to help flush out any alcohol toxins," Pettis said. "She was good a couple of days later." Pettis says the opossum did not appear to have a hangover. The store owner, Cash Moore, says he never had an opossum break in before. "She came in from the outside and was up in the rafters, and when she came through she knocked a bottle of liquor off the shelf," Moore said. "When she got down on the floor she drank the whole damn bottle." "But it just goes to show that even the animals are impressed with Cash's," he said. The animal was released on Thursday.
Judy Obregon knows an opossum when she sees one. There is
one who visits her porch regularly.
While driving down her block on February 20 heading to her
mother-in-law's house, she stopped as she saw what she first thought was a dead
opossum in the road.
Until the little one lifted her head. And looked toward
Obregon.
It was as if the opossum knew Obregon was there to help.
"I knew I could not walk away," she said.
As the founder of The Abandoned Ones "Saving Animals in Danger" animal rescue in Fort Worth, Texas, Obregon has been rescuing dogs mainly from
a known dog-fighting area in her city. However, if an animal needs help,
regardless of species, Obregon springs into action, as she did with the
opossum.
The opossum at first struggled to walk away before Judy
Obregon was able to get her to the side of the road.
Obregon got out of her car and walked over to the opossum
and saw a trail of blood leading from a driveway to the animal while a bloody
stick lay nearby. Her gut told her the animal had not been hit by a car and
that the opossum was a "she" carrying babies.
Helping the helpless
The opossum kept struggling to lift her head and tried to
walk, so Obregon helped gently push the animal to the side of the road to
prevent a mishap with a car. Obregon ran to her own car to grab a T-shirt to
cover the opossum for warmth.
Obregon found a T-shirt in her car and was able to wrap the
opossum in it for warmth.
She then got on the phone and started reaching out to find
someone who could help. After calling DFW Wildlife Coalition,she was given a list of numbers for local wildlife rehabilitators and finally
reached Tabatha, who lived within minutes away.
While she waited for Tabatha, Obregon knew it was most
important to find a box and get the opossum safe and warm.
Since she was a block from her mother-in-law's house and
her husband was there, she got him to watch the opossum while she ran inside to
get a box.
Obregon wanted to make sure not to hurt the animal.
The opossum was so tiny. So fragile.
And so scared.
"I put the box down to see if the opossum would crawl
into it," she said. "I put it in front of her and used my hands to
guide her into the box." The opossum struggled but crawled inside as if
she knew she was being rescued, according to Obregon, who then carried the box
about a block back to her mother-in-law's house where she sat in front and
waited.
Wildlife help arrives
Tabatha arrived about 10 minutes later.
"It was so emotional," Obregon said. "I do
rescue work all the time, but to see another rescuer do what I do was so
heartwarming."
Tabatha, the wildlife rehabilitator, evaluated Angel the
first night she brought her home.
Tabatha is a wildlife rehabilitator who is in her fourth
year of helping to rehabilitate a variety of animals, from opossums (the only
marsupial in North America) and squirrels, to minks and raccoons. She and her
husband Ronnie each have a sub-permit (they work under someone who is
permitted) with the state of Texas, whereby they are taught everything
necessary to rehabilitate animals from feeding, triage and how to determine if
an animal needs veterinary care to nutrition, cage setup and releasing an
animal back into the wild. Tabatha is in the process of applying for her own
permit.
Angel's injuries were extensive, and Tabatha believed they
were inflicted by humans.
First Tabatha verified that the opossum was female and that
she did have joeys (or babies) in her pouch. Joeys are born blind, bald and
completely defenseless; they weigh about 3 to 4 grams and develop in their
mother's pouch for 60 days. Tabatha covered the opossum, who Obregon named
Angel, with a blanket and placed her safely in a carrier and took her home.
"I could tell she was not hit by a car from the blood
evidence and what she looked like," Tabatha said. "I could tell she
was struck by something."
A plan for Angel to recover
Upon arrival at her home, Tabatha took Angel out to check
her thoroughly and found no broken bones or heavy bleeding. "I could tell
on evaluation of her that she was struck, and I'm pretty sure she was shot with
a BB gun," Tabatha said. There were about four teeth that were damaged and
a spot on the roof of her mouth where the BB hit. Since there was no exit
wound, Angel most likely swallowed the BB.
By the second night, Angel started to show some
improvement.
Tabatha called the wildlife veterinarian with whom she
consults and talked over the case and determined Angel did not need to go into
the office. On the vet's advice, Tabatha administered some pain medication and
fluids, cleaned Angel's wounds, placed her in a cage and fed her some
vegetables, fruit and chicken. "You can tell her mouth is sore, but she
has been eating and drinking on her own, which is great news."
She also checked on Angel's babies, who were OK. However,
she was not allowed to remove them as that could be dangerous for the babies.
Opossums oftentimes get a bad rap, but a little education can go a
long way.
Angel loves being held and snuggling with Ronnie, Tabatha's
husband, who is also a wildlife rehabilitator.
For starters, it is highly unlikely for them to carry
rabies, according to Tabatha, as their blood temperature is too low to sustain
the virus. Most often they are scared of humans and are not aggressive.
Tabatha has been evaluating Angel at night because opossums
are nocturnal. She wants to ensure Angel is calm and there are no loud noises.
"Right now she is scared and you can tell she is hurting," she said.
"She is very sweet. Opossums have a very shy demeanor."
When scared, opossums will hiss and open their mouths very
wide. "If that doesn't work they can play possum, which is play dead and
they actually have glands on their anus that secrete a very stinky, horrible
smelling fluid to make them smell dead." Typically if you leave them
alone, they will leave an area, unless there is food.
Accepting help from humans
Although Tabatha feels that Angel was hurt by humans,
"She has not tried to bite me once," she said. "She knows I am
here to help, not to hurt her. I think she has a very good chance.
Angel continues to heal, and Tabatha hopes to release her
in a couple of weeks.
"My goal is to make sure she doesn't get an infection,
add a little weight to her, and release her and her babies together as soon as
possible," which most likely will be another week or two as long as Angel
continues to heal. Tabatha knows a man who loves wildlife. He has 60 acres and
hunting is prohibited, so she will release Angel on his property.
Rescuing Angel was "not one of my typical rescues
because I rescue dogs and cats," Obregon said. "This is out of the
ordinary for me, but I wouldn't have avoided her for that reason. She is still
an animal with a beating heart, and it was still beating when I got to
her."
If you find an injured wild animal, the Humane Society of the United States has information to help. You can also contact your local parks and wildlife
organization for information and a list of rehabilitators in your area, or call
your local animal control. If you ever bring wildlife to a rehabber, please
leave a donation as they are self-funded.
Beverly Grove, Los Angeles - A woman cleaning out a closet noticed a trash
bag moving. Startled she opened the bag and found a mom opossum and her babies.
When she opened the bag the mom opossum was upset and
hissed at her. Tara McVicar pulled out her cell phone and documented her close
encounter. "That's a terrifying sound, but you're relatively cute,"
she says to the hissing marsupial.
She's soon won over once she realizes it's a momma possum
with her seven babies on her back, nearly melting down: "Omg! it's the
cutest thing I ever saw."
McVicar thinks the opossums got in when she left the patio
door open for her daughter's pet rabbit, Mustache.
Eventually she's able to get the animals outside when she
puts the bag, with a few babies inside, in Mustache's backyard cage. The babies
calling out for their mother draw the opossums out. "Just take 3rd all the
way to Beverly Hills," she says as she bids the possum family farewell.
They come out at night, they have scary teeth, they have a weird name with an extra vowel most people don't pronounce…and they are where Lyme disease goes to die. Say hello to the opossum, the American marsupial with a pointy nose and prehensile tail that dines on ticks like a vacuum dines on dust. Most people drop the first vowel when speaking of 'possums, but possums actually belong to a different species native to Australia. Tiny adolescent ticks that carry Lyme disease bacteria are most active during the late spring months, typically May and even as early as April during warmer years. But whereas these ticks can be found in large numbers on mice, shrews and chipmunks, they are eaten in large numbers by opossum. Research led by scientists based at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook placed different species into cages, covered them with ticks and waited for the biting arachnids to jump off. The scientists then counted how many survived. Opossums can eat or remove as much as 96 percent of the ticks that land on them. Research also suggests the immune system of opossums is fairly effective at fighting off the disease. So even the ticks that do survive a visit to an opossum are less likely to acquire the disease. Cary scientists are continuing to examine the correlation between the frequency of different types of mammals, and the infection rates of ticks found in the same area. The initial thought? Where foxes thrive, Lyme doesn't. That's because foxes are good hunters of the small mammals that serve as the most effective reservoirs of the Lyme pathogen. Ongoing research is also looking at the role opossums play. All of this points to why Lyme is a particularly inscrutable disease. There are so many complex interactions that govern its prevalence — from human land-use development, to shifting climate patterns, to the abundance (or lack) of certain mammals. And that doesn't even address how the disease behaves once it is in the body. The Lyme bacterium is apparently one of the only things on earth that doesn't need iron to survive. Opossums are your friend in the fight against Lyme.
