Possums

What do you need to know more about?

What colour are their eyes?

-Whitish Yellow

Do they live in groups?

Live by themselves. They are very territorial, and do not really share their space with other possums.

What countries do they live in?

- Possums are found in New Guinea, Australia (including Tasmania), Sulawesi (Indonesia) and a few other small islands in the Pacific Region.

How many babies do they have?

Possums generally give birth to just to a single joey (baby possum) at a time. They have about 1 - 5 babies.

What family do they come from? eg: Cheetah is from the Cat family.

Well actually possum is a suborder (Phalangeriformes) in the order Diprotodontia. So possums don't belong to a family, but they make up different types of families. There are six families in this suborder:
1. Burramyidae: Pygmy possums
2. Phalangeridae: Brush tail possums and cuscuses
3. Pseudocheiridae
4. Petauridae
5. Tarsipedidae
6. Acrobatidae

Why don't we want to see these animals on the NZ bush?

Possums are destroying New Zealand on two fronts. Every night an estimated 70 million of them chew their way through 21 000 tonnes of choice green shoots, fruits, berries and leaves in our native forests (the equivalent of eating 190 million standard hamburgers each night). Possums are omnivores,
and, as well as a wide range of leaves, they eat birds’ eggs, chicks and insects. Their voracious appetite threatens the survival of many of our native plants, birds and insects. Apart from their destruction of our native plants and animals, possums are also a major pest on farmland. They can be a carrier, and transmitter, of the disease Bovine tuberculosis (Tb) in many parts of the country. The presence of that
disease threatens New Zealand’s reputation as an exporter of world class beef and venison.