Yes, we have no bananas

Some people love possums, some people hate ’em. I guess it depends on whether the furry creatures play football in your roof at 2 a.m. or not. Or strip your trees of fruit. Or shriek at each other like demented banshees in the middle of the night.

I’ve in the ‘love’ camp, probably because I don’t suffer any of the above.  I have had rats and probably antechinuses running around in the roof cavity, and that’s annoying, but the carpet snake makes short work of them when it’s in residence.

Friends at the top of the mountain behind us have banana plants, and there’s nothing a possum likes more than a sweet banana. In a previous house, I’d been woken in the wee small hours by a disturbance on the front porch – a possum was stretched out full length, hanging down from the porch roof, reaching for bananas in a hand we’d hung up to ripen. I figured she deserved a few for her efforts, so went back to bed.

This thief-in-the-night is a bobuck (our northern species was renamed in 2005 from mountain brushtail possum to short-eared possum, Trichosurus caninus).

Short-eared possum; photo by Glen Jones

We also have the common brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula).

Common brushtail possum; photo by Vicki Nunn, Wikimedia Commons

The common brushtail is the bane of many an Australian city-dweller’s life. Pest removers are often called to get them out of roof cavities. The cavity must be blocked up straight away, or the possum (or a relation) will be back very soon.