What Do Opossums Actually Eat? A Complete Guide to Their Diet

Of all the traits that have allowed Virginia opossums (Didelphis virginiana) to thrive across a continent, none is more important than what they are willing to eat. The short answer is: almost everything. Opossums are opportunistic omnivores with a dietary breadth that rivals raccoons and crows. They will eat insects, berries, carrion, garden snails, ticks, earthworms, small rodents, and, given the chance, the cat food sitting on your back porch. This flexibility is not a sign of desperation—it is a highly successful ecological strategy refined over millions of years.

Understanding what opossums actually eat matters both for people who encounter them in backyards and for ecologists who study how urban and suburban wildlife systems function. Opossums occupy a niche that most people overlook: they are one of the most effective cleanup crews in North American ecosystems.

Insects: The Dietary Foundation

Insects and other invertebrates form the primary protein source in the opossum's diet throughout most of the year. Opossums forage slowly and methodically, probing leaf litter, rotting logs, and soil with their long, pointed snouts. Their 50 teeth—more than any other North American land mammal—are well-suited to crushing hard-shelled beetles, grubs, and other arthropods.

Common insect prey includes:

• Beetles and beetle larvae (grubs), particularly those found in rotting wood and soil
• Grasshoppers and crickets in open areas
• Caterpillars and moth larvae on vegetation
• Cockroaches, which opossums actively seek around human structures
• Ants and other social insects when nests are disturbed

The opossum's slow, thorough foraging style makes it particularly effective at finding insects that faster-moving predators miss. Where a raccoon might quickly overturn a log and move on, an opossum will methodically work over every crevice.

Ticks: A Surprising and Significant Service

Research by wildlife ecologist Richard Ostfeld and colleagues at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies has highlighted a remarkable aspect of opossum foraging: opossums kill and consume enormous numbers of ticks. During grooming sessions, opossums methodically remove ticks from their fur and consume them. Studies suggest a single opossum may kill and eat 5,000 or more ticks per season.

Because opossums are such thorough groomers and move through tick-dense habitats regularly, they function as ecological vacuum cleaners for ticks—consuming the vast majority of ticks that attempt to feed on them rather than serving as reservoir hosts.

Unlike white-footed mice, which are highly efficient reservoir hosts for Lyme disease bacteria (Borrelia burgdorferi), opossums have an immune response that largely clears the pathogen before ticks can pick it up from feeding. The combination of killing ticks through grooming and not amplifying tick-borne disease makes opossums genuinely valuable from a public health perspective.

Snails, Slugs, and Earthworms

Opossums are enthusiastic consumers of gastropods and worms, which they locate by smell in damp soil and garden beds. This has practical implications for gardeners: opossums actively reduce slug and snail populations that damage vegetables and ornamental plants. An opossum visiting a vegetable garden at night is far more likely to be hunting the slugs attacking your lettuce than eating the lettuce itself.

Earthworms are also taken regularly, particularly during and after rain when worms surface. This places opossums in an interesting ecological position relative to robins and other diurnal worm predators—they exploit the same resource at a different time of day, reducing direct competition.

Fruit and Plant Material

Fruit is a seasonally critical component of the opossum diet. In late summer and autumn, when soft fruits ripen and fall, opossums shift heavily toward plant material to build fat reserves before winter. Their preferred fruits include:

• Persimmons, which become sweet and edible after frost—opossums are well-known persimmon consumers and important seed dispersers for the tree
• Wild berries including pokeweed, blackberries, raspberries, and serviceberries
• Fallen apples, pears, and other orchard fruits
• Grapes, both wild and cultivated
• Corn and other grains when field edges are accessible

Opossums will also consume nuts (especially fallen acorns and hickory nuts), mushrooms, and various plant matter when other foods are scarce. They are not particularly efficient at cracking hard-shelled nuts but will work at softer ones.

Carrion: Essential Ecosystem Scavengers

Carrion—the flesh of dead animals—is one of the most ecologically important items in the opossum's diet, and one of the least appreciated. Opossums are among the most reliable scavengers in eastern North American ecosystems. They locate carcasses by smell and will consume road-killed deer, birds, squirrels, rabbits, and virtually any other animal they encounter dead.

This scavenging role is genuinely valuable. Carcasses left to rot attract flies and disease vectors, contaminate water near streams, and can harbor pathogens. Efficient scavengers like opossums accelerate carcass breakdown, reduce the window during which a dead animal poses ecological and public health risks, and return nutrients to the soil more quickly.

Unlike vultures, which dominate daytime scavenging, opossums work the night shift. Their nocturnal schedule means they clean up road kill and other carrion during hours when few other scavengers are active. In suburban areas where vultures are uncommon, opossums may be the primary medium-sized scavenger available.

Opossums have also evolved a degree of tolerance for bacterial toxins that would sicken other mammals, which may partly explain their ability to consume carrion at various stages of decomposition without apparent ill effects.

Small Vertebrates: Occasional Predation

Opossums do occasionally prey on small vertebrates, though this is not a primary dietary strategy. Documented prey includes:

• House mice and voles, typically caught opportunistically
• Small shrews
• Small birds, especially ground-nesting species or young birds that fall from nests
• Bird eggs, though this is less common than often assumed
• Small frogs, toads, and salamanders
• Small snakes, including, remarkably, venomous species that opossums can withstand due to partial immunity to pit viper venom

Opossums are not fast enough to be effective pursuit predators. The small vertebrates they take are typically encountered at close range during slow foraging rather than actively chased down. Claims that opossums significantly impact songbird nesting success or chicken coops are generally overstated; such events occur but are not representative of normal foraging behavior.

Seasonal Dietary Shifts

Opossum diets shift substantially across the year in response to food availability. A general seasonal pattern in temperate North America looks like this:

• Spring: Heavy invertebrate focus as insects emerge. Earthworms and emerging beetles are primary targets. Some plant material as early green growth appears.
• Summer: Mixed diet of insects, berries, and opportunistic vertebrate prey. Tick consumption peaks as tick populations are active.
• Autumn: Shift toward high-calorie fruits, nuts, and carrion. Fat deposition is critical before winter. Persimmon and fallen apples become dominant foods.
• Winter: Opportunistic scavenging dominates. Invertebrate availability drops sharply. Opossums may lose significant body weight during cold periods and become less active, though they do not truly hibernate.

Do Opossums Damage Gardens?

This question comes up constantly, and the evidence-based answer is: rarely, and usually the damage they do is minor compared to the pests they eliminate. Opossums do occasionally bite into tomatoes, melons, and corn when other food is scarce. They may dig in garden beds when hunting grubs and worms, leaving small shallow divots.

Against this, weigh what they remove from your garden: slugs, snails, grubs, aphid-farming ants, and other invertebrates that cause far more cumulative plant damage than the occasional opossum visit. The balance is generally favorable toward opossums from a gardener's perspective.

If you are finding significant damage to vegetables, investigate other likely culprits first: deer, rabbits, groundhogs, and rats are all more common garden raiders than opossums.

Should You Feed Opossums?

Many people who appreciate opossums in their yards want to encourage them by leaving out food. The question of whether to do so deserves careful thought.

If your goal is simply to have opossums visit your yard and provide their ecological services, the most effective approach is indirect: reduce outdoor lighting (which suppresses nocturnal foraging), leave leaf litter and brush piles that harbor invertebrates, plant native fruit-bearing shrubs, and avoid pesticide use that reduces the insect prey base opossums depend on.

The dietary flexibility that defines opossums is, ultimately, why they have outlasted so many of the ecological pressures that have driven other species to decline. In a world where generalists increasingly outperform specialists, the opossum—willing to eat almost anything the night provides—is well-positioned for a very long future.