Ecology of the Opossum on a Natural Area in Northeastern KansasFitch, Henry S. (Henry Sheldon)
Science
Ecology of the Opossum on a Natural Area in Northeastern Kansas
Fitch, Henry S. (Henry Sheldon)
Opossums
No evidence of territorial behavior was found in the opossum. Many
individuals of both sexes and various sizes, occurred together on the
same area. Successive captures of individuals revealed the usual
extent of home ranges, which averaged approximately 50 acres, and
tended to a circular or broadly oval shape. No significant difference
in size of home ranges between males and females, or between adults
and well-grown young, was found. Of 115 young marked by toe-clipping
while still in the females' pouches, 15 were recaptured after periods
of months. All but two of these recaptured young were females which
had settled down within a few hundred feet of the locations where they
were born. The young males seem to wander much more extensively than
do the females.
Feeding habits were investigated by field examination of scats found
mainly in fall and winter. These consisted mainly of wild fruits,
especially grape, blackberry, wild crabapple, wild plum, and
hackberry. Crayfish was the most important animal food. No comparable
data for spring or summer were obtained because scats deteriorate
rapidly in warm weather and were seldom found then. Clues as to the
summer food were gained from sign. On many occasions opossums
disturbed live-traps set for small animals, to obtain the voles, mice,
skinks, or insects caught in them. Evidence of opossum activity such
as digging and scratching was frequently noticed at the edges of rocks
and in crevices, where such prey as skinks, narrow-mouthed toads,
beetles, spiders and centipedes seek shelter. One opossum was observed
to catch and kill a young cottontail.
The opossums trapped ranged in weight from 126 grams to 5000 grams but
most weighed between 1000 and 2000 grams. After being trapped and
marked by toe-clipping, animals usually lost weight, up to as much as
18 per cent of the original weight. Food scarcity and enforced fasting
in cold weather caused a weight loss from November until the arrival
of warm spring weather. By late April and May some opossums were
emaciated and in critical condition.
The entire population of opossums, including the majority less than a
year old, breeds in February, and litters are born mainly in the first
half of March. The young develop rapidly in the female's pouch, and
become independent in late May, and there is a second breeding season
with young born mainly in the first half of June. By the onset of cool
fall weather, young born in early spring have grown so that most are
as large as small adults. The young born in early summer are still
less than half-grown. The young of the second litter are less
successful than those of the first litter and make up only a small
part of the breeding population the following year. In 28 litters of
young the average was 7.4, but probably some of these litters had
already sustained losses.
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