Update 23rd November 2012

Kiki, Svejk, Wesley, Pinot and Marlon have all been visiting (in roughly that order of frequency).

A new male ringtail has been seen around. He looks like Wasabi - who is quite possibly his father - but is smaller (smaller than he looks in the photo) and has some nicks out of his ears. He might be one of the babies seen in September of this year. We have called him Tabasco. Hopefully, like Wasabi, he will prove to be distasteful to pythons.

Tabasco 7/11/2012

Wasabi himself hasn't visited for a while, however there have been ringtails seen in the trees, and it's possible he's about, but just not visiting.

Toe-biting Possums

Many brushtail possums have a toe-biting habit. When I was on holidays in Tasmania a few years ago, one of the local possums (named Rufus) greeted me in the following way:

Rufus toe-biting - Cradle Mountain, Tasmania 8/9/2008

I haven't worked out what the motivation for this is.

The majority will advance menacingly towards a person's foot, lightly nip at the big toe then run away. Some, however, will merely sniff at a toe. Very few will bite hard. Some possums never toe-bite at all. Ginger, our first possum, was like this. She would occasionally climb a person's leg, but never toe-bite.