(Virginia) Possums and Ticks
2021-12-03 18:15:38.949546+01 by Dan Lyke 0 comments
I'm as much of a fan of possums as anyone, except when they crawl up your dryer vent and electrocute themselves inside the back of the machine (the single most disgusting experience I've ever had to deal with), but don't believe all of the memes: Are Virginia opossums really ecological traps for ticks? Groundtruthing laboratory observations DOI: 10.1016/j.ttbdis.2021.101780
Using a dissecting microscope, we searched the contents exhaustively for ticks and tick body parts, without sieving or pre-rinsing the stomach contents. We did not locate any ticks or tick parts in the stomach contents of Virginia opossums. We also performed a vigorous literature search for corroborating evidence of tick ingestion. Our search revealed 23 manuscripts that describe diet analyses of Virginia opossums, 19 of which were conducted on stomach or digestive tract contents and four of which were scat-based analyses. None of the studies identified ticks in their analyses of diet items. We conclude that ticks are not a preferred diet item for Virginia opossums.