What kinds of insects do possums eat?

Answer 1

Possums, which are omnivorous marsupials of Australia and some of the nearby island countries, do not eat native animals. Apart from fruit, seeds and vegetation, they eat grubs, larvae and flying insects.

Answer 2

The term "flying possum" is a misnomer, as no possum can fly. There are, however, six species of gliding possums, and their food preferences vary according to the species.

• Sugar gliders feed on tree sap, nectar, some fruits and a variety of small insects such as mealworms, beetles, crickets, grasshoppers, lerps and moths. They prefer sap and resin from trees such as eucalyptus (gum trees) and acacia (wattle).
• Greater gliders eat a variety of eucalyptus leaves of the subgenus Monocalyptus. They also feed on nectar from the flowers of those eucalyptus species.
• Mahogany gliders and Yellow-bellied gliders eat the nectar, pollen and sap of around twenty different species of Australian plants. It eats the arils of wattles: arils are protein-rich stringy structures which connect seeds to their pod. These gliders also eat honeydew - not the melon, but a sweet sticky substance which is excreted by insects such as aphids. It is omnivorous, feeding also on insects such as lerps.
• Feathertail Gliders eat mainly nectar and pollen from Banksia flowers. Their tongues have special fine hairs on the tips which help them collect nectar and pollen. Feathertails also eat sap, as well as pollen and nectar from other plants. They eat small arthropods such as lerps.
• Squirrel gliders feed on a variety of flowers, fruits, saps, seeds, pollen and nectar from different Australian native plants such as eucalyptus, wattle and banksias in bushland and forests. They also feed on invertebrates such as beetles and beetles larvae, cicadas, moths, caterpillars and grasshoppers. Occasionally they will eat small roosting birds, eggs, mammals such as mice and small lizards.

Answer 3

The kinds of insects eaten by possums depends on the type of possum. The Mountain Pygmy Possum, for example, lives mainly on Bogong moths of the High country. Sugar gliders only eat small insects, but larger possums eat moths, cicadas, beetles and various grubs (insect larvae).

Not all possums eat insects (possums are not the same as opossums of North America.): it depends on the species. Possums are essentially herbivorous and insectivorous, meaning they will eat a variety of foods. In the wild, besides insects they eat young shoots, leaves, flowers, nectar and fruit of a variety of trees and shrubs. Possums' feeding habits range from omnivores (the Common Brushtail possum) to specialist browsers of eucalyptus (Greater Glider), insectivores (Mountain Pygmy Possum) and nectar-feeders (Honey Possum).