Dan wrote:
"Anne Chambers" wrote in message
...
David Hare-Scott wrote:
I have ripe oranges on the tree. Something is stealing and eating
them. Four fruit have been taken off the tree and left a few metres
away. Each has a neat round hole cut in the side about 5cm across,
the small bits of skin were left scattered about. The predator has
then neatly eaten all the flesh of the orange leaving an empty skin
with a hole in it. No bird or animal has been sighted nearby. There
are no identifiable bite marks anywhere to give away the culprit.

The bats have left for warmer latitudes and in any case they cannot
eat on the ground.

A mouse couldn't move the whole fruit and wouldn't need a hole that
big.

There are no stray gouges from teeth marks that rats so often leave
when they eat something sizeable so if it is a rat it is the
neatest one ever seen who was very focussed on getting to the flesh
while chewing the least amount of skin.

Rabbits would go for all manner of other things in the garden before
oranges and there are no droppings.

I am thinking it is a possum.

Any views?

David

Possum - they have got all my grapefruit, the b+++++s got most of the
plums and apples too
--
Anne Chambers
South Australia

anne dot chambers at bigpond dot com

I live in North Queensland. I have possums living in my shed. They run
across the roof at night. They sound like a herd of elephants having
an orgy. I have oranges, lemons, grapefruit, and mandarins. I have
never seen any fruit eaten in such a way. Now cockatoos, flying
foxes, and parrots - they are my enemies.
Cheers,
Dan

There is nothing else fruiting here right now so they cannot be too picky.

David