Possum TV Live: Movie Highlights

Download Movie Highlights

This page contains edited highlights of some of the more interesting footage we have captured. To watch these film clips, you can either download the AVI file from this page or follow the link to YouTube. You can also go to the YouTube channel I've set up, and watch the movies from there.

If you are just interested in having a quick look, I'd recommend going to YouTube (if available); you aren't limited by the bandwidth of the Possum TV site, and the movies will just play in your browser without any mucking around. On the other hand, if you want to download a movie to play off-line, or if you're somewhere where they block YouTube, you should download the AVIs.

More Info on the AVI Files: [show]

Cute Possum Movies
Possum Fights
Other
Old Movies

Cute Possums

Possums are inherently cute; consequently, a large proportion of the (many thousands of) movies recorded by this server could be classed as cute. Currently I've just put together a few typical examples. I will add more later as time permits.

Thumbnail	Details	Comments
	Box: 3 Date: 20/3/2009 File Size: 4.7 MB Time Period: 0:01:58 Download View on YouTube	Kiki doing a silly back-rubbing dance. Possums will sometimes visit a box during the night to back-rub like this (although they don't always look quite as silly), and it's not clear why they do it. It might be related to scent marking, however brushtails have scent glands on the chest and near the cloaca—neither of which come into contact with the box during the back-rubbing process.
	Box: 3 Date: 14/9/2009 File Size: 18.2 MB Time Period: 0:05:53 Download View on YouTube	Kiki and Fifi visit a nestbox When this video was recorded, this nestbox was in Leena's (Kiki's mother's) territory, so Kiki is being a bit cheeky and is running the risk of being chased out for trespassing. This is a fairly long video which is probably better watched on YouTube since I have reduced the bit rate to get the size down.
	Box: 4 Date: 24/11/2009 File Size: 2.7 MB Time Period: 0:01:08 Download View on YouTube	Leena with baby Yoshi. Baby brushtails are often very naughty; ear-biting, face-scrabbling and generally being a pest to their mothers. In this movie, Yoshi is only moderately annoying.
	Box: 2 Date: 13/12/2009 File Size: 1.1 MB Time Period: 0:00:23 Download View on YouTube	Gumdrop's two babies exit the box by climbing up her tail.
	Box: 5 Date: 10/6/2010 File Size: 2.1 MB Time Period: 0:00:52 Download View on YouTube	Yoshi (now grown up and on her own) checking out the (then) new box 5.
	Box: 1 Date: 15/10/2010 File Size: 925 kB Time Period: 0:00:21 Download View on YouTube	Java waking up and yawning: where's my coffee?
	Box: 7 Date: 21/10/2010 File Size: 5.6 MB Time Period: 0:01:49 Download View on YouTube	Java practicing gymnastics by hanging from the camera. This is an example of some of the abuse possum box cameras are subjected to.
	Box: 3 Date: 22/10/2010 File Size: 830 kB Time Period: 0:00:19 Download View on YouTube	Java being cute.
	Box: 7 Date: 20/03/2011 File Size: 1.8 MB Time Period: 0:00:23 Download View on YouTube	Kiki and Piranha playing in a nestbox. Piranha is practicing face-scrabbling, an important skill he will need later in life. See the Piranha v Marlon video below to see him putting his lessons into practice.
	Box: 7 Date: 3/11/2011 File Size: 7.6 MB Time Period: 0:01:41 Download View on YouTube	Kiki and Lex play-fighting in a nestbox.
	Box: 3 Date: 17/12/2012 File Size: 17.3 MB Time Period: 0:03:47 Download View on YouTube	Pinot yawning and stretching on a hot day. During cold weather, brushtail possums curl up into little balls and tend to sleep soundly. During hot weather, however, they often get uncomfortable and twist and flail around like Pinot is doing here. During extremely hot days, possums will sometimes even leave their sleeping holes, risking getting mobbed by birds in order to find somewhere cooler. At the time this video was being recorded, the temperature was 32°C, with 55% humidity—hot and sticky enough to be uncomfortable. You will notice that Pinot is licking his wrists from time to time. This is to cool himself down by evaporation and is common amongst marsupials.
	Box: 7 Date: 18/12/2012 File Size: 18.3 MB Time Period: 0:04:02 Download View on YouTube	Kiki and Spock 1 Kiki is trying to sleep on a hot day and has to put up with her baby (subsequently named Spock) squirming and flailing in her pouch. Before too much longer, Kiki's baby will be leaving the pouch when in the nestbox and making a pest of itself climbing all over her, biting her ears and so on.
	Box: 7 Date: 15/01/2013 File Size: 9.4 MB Time Period: 00:02:03 Download View on YouTube	Kiki and Spock 2 Four weeks after the previous movie, Spock emerges from Kiki's pouch for the first time (that we have seen).
	Box: 7 Date: 21/1/2013 File Size: 4.4 MB Time Period: 00:00:57 Download View on YouTube	Kiki and Spock 3 About a week after the movie above, Spock is seen climbing into Kiki's pouch, upside-down with his legs flailing. Spock kicks Kiki in the mouth a couple of times in the process, but Kiki merely puts her paw in the way of the offending foot. Mother possums start off very tolerant and protective of their babies, but rapidly get less so as the baby grows up.
	Box: 7 Date: 2/2/2013 File Size: 7.0 MB Time Period: 00:01:32 Download View on YouTube	Kiki and Spock 4 A bit under two weeks after the movie above, Spock is now old enough for a face-scrabbling lessons. The sooner a baby possum learns this important skill, the better.
	Box: 1 Date: 20/2/2013 File Size: 18.3 MB Time Period: 00:03:11 Download View on YouTube	Kiki and Spock 5 A bit over two weeks later, Spock emerges from the pouch, greets Kiki with a face scrabbling, and starts confidently exploring the nestbox.

Possum Fights

No possums were harmed in making these movies (although some lost a bit of fur).

There have been a number of fights occur in possum boxes. Most of the time, there is a male possum in the box, and a female possum enters the box and attacks the male, ejecting him from the box. The motivation for this is unclear. The female is not simply ejecting the male to claim a desirable sleeping place for herself, because she always leaves the box soon after the fight.

I regret that the movies lack sound, because these fights usually involve a lot of shrieking; I have been woken up by them a couple of times. Although it may not seem that way, the actual amount of damage done in these fights is quite small; we have seen possums immediately after these fights and there have been no noticeable injuries.

Thumbnail	Details	Comments
	Box: 1 Date: 29/7/2009 File Size: 2.4 MB Time Period: 0:00:30 Download View on YouTube	Leena v Švejk Leena attacks Švejk and drives him out of the box
	Box: 4 Date: 24/10/2009 File Size: 1.8 MB Time Period: 0:00:22 Download View on YouTube	Leena v Hulot Leena attacks Hulot and drives him out of the box.
	Box: 4 Date: 2/3/2010 File Size: 2.4 MB Time Period: 0:00:30 Download View on YouTube	Leena v Pesto Leena attacks Pesto and drives him out of the box.
	Box: 4 Date: 27/3/2010 File Size: 3.1 MB Time Period: 0:00:40 Download View on YouTube	Leena v Hulot Leena attacks Hulot and drives him out of the box. Leena is particularly angry and gives him a good biting and scratching before she lets him go. This movie is particularly popular on YouTube, possibly because it is the fiercest of all of the fight videos.
	Box: 2 Date: 2/5/2010 File Size: 5.7 MB Time Period: 0:01:14 Download	Leena v Pesto An unknown possum (almost certainly Leena) attacks Pesto and drives him out of the box. The quality of this movie is poor because the possums are virtually pressed against the camera during the fight.
	Box: 5 Date: 11/9/2011 File Size: 15.8 MB Time Period: 0:03:29 Download ~~View on YouTube~~	Epic Fight: Piranha v Marlon At the time of this fight, Piranha was only recently independent and still very small. He is sleeping in the box when the movie starts. Marlon is a marauding male who recently came into the area. Although probably not more than a couple of years old, he is an adult possum and much bigger than Piranha. He had previously attacked Piranha and driven him out of box 7 and was looking to repeat the performance. The Fight: Piranha is woken from his sleep by noises outside the box. The instant Marlon appears at entrance (below the camera and not visible) Piranha leaps to the attack. The two possums then roll around biting and scratching in a confused tangle. Normally at this point, the younger possum would try to escape, but this time Piranha refuses to be pushed around. He gets on his back so that he can lash out with all four sets of claws and shrieks defiance at Marlon. Possum claws are needle-sharp and fur flies. A number of times, Marlon turns around and looks back at the camera in a worried sort of way. It's like he's thinking "What have I got myself into? I thought it'd be a pushover, but this little guy is really fighting. Maybe I should slink away, but then all of the other possums would laugh at me." Eventually Marlon retreats from the box with Piranha yelling threats and insults after him. In the days after this fight, all of the other possums in the area took turns at visiting the scene of the battle. Kiki took her latest baby, Lex, into the box as if to say "Look at what your older brother did, aren't you proud of him."
	Box: 1 Date: 7/6/2012 File Size: 1.8 MB Time Period: 0:00:23 Download View on YouTube	Kiki v Pinot Pinot is sleeping peacefully in the box when an unknown possum (almost certainly Kiki) attacks him and chases him out of the box, giving him a good biting in the process.
	Box: 3 Date: 18^th April 2017 File Size: 2.0 MB Time Period: 0:00:26 Download View on YouTube	Sasha v Farley Farley is attacked and driven out of Box 3 by Sasha. This is the first time either of these possums have been caught fighting on camera.

Other

Here are various other film clips that don't fit into any of the above categories.

Thumbnail	Details	Comments
	Box: 2 Date: 12/12/2009 File Size: 2.4 MB Time Period: 0:01:00 Download View on YouTube	A sugar glider having a look around. This is the only time a sugar glider (or possibly a squirrel glider; I can't tell from the video), has visited any of our boxes.
	Box: 6 Date: 26/9/2010 File Size: 20.0 MB Time Period: 0:04:23 Download View on YouTube	Feral honeybees take over the sugar glider nestbox. Very scary stuff. Lucky there weren't any gliders in the box. The raw footage of this incident was around 40 minutes long, so I've edited it down to a little over 4 minutes and also spiced it up with inter-titles and a dramatic soundtrack. I would recommend watching it on YouTube because the version on this site may take a long time to download and is also of reduced quality. For any copyright nazis lurking in the shadows; the soundtrack to this video (Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain", played by Skidmore College Orchestra) was obtained from musopen.org and is free from any copyright restrictions.
	Box: 4 Date: 1/2/2011 File Size: 2.6 MB Time Period: 0:01:04 Download View on YouTube	A carpet python entering a possum box. Carpet pythons are seen every now and then in this area, although this is the first time one has decided to sleep in a possum box. These snakes can take on larger prey than you might imagine and it's quite possible that this one could devour an adult brushtail. I'm not sure whether this one was just visiting the box for a rest, or whether it was waiting in ambush. At the time, two ringtails (Gumdrop and Chilli), who had been using the nearby box 2, wisely decided to depart the area. [Unfortunately, Gumdrop was not so lucky when the next python came into the area a year later.] We were lucky to capture this python on film because it was moving barely fast enough to trigger motion detection.
	Box: 1 Date: 25/9/2011 File Size: 15.1 MB Time Period: 0:03:17 Download View on YouTube	Švejk - Apparently drunk Švejk was in box 1 for 40 minutes one evening, rolling around in a very uncoordinated manner. I'm not sure whether he was actually drunk or sick in some way, but it certainly looks like drunkenness. Whatever happened, he appeared normal the following day and has been fine ever since. This is very unusual behavior. I have not seen anything like this in all of the years I've had box cameras.
	Date: 23/11/2011 File Size: 3.6 MB Time Period: 0:00:26 Download View on YouTube	Kiki Puffing Kiki gives a demonstration of one of the typical brushtail possum vocalisations. I call this a "puffing" sound, but it has also been referred to as a rattling cough, snore, hiss etc. I believe the purpose of this sound is to mark territory. Some people say that this puffing sound is only made by male brushtails, but this video clearly shows otherwise.
	Box: 2 Date: 15/2/2012 File Size: 33.7 MB Time Period: 0:07:48 Download View on YouTube	Python Attacking Gumdrop and Baby This is the incident where Gumdrop and Lychee were attacked in their nestbox by a Carpet Python and one or both killed and eaten. I have tried to make this video as useful as possible for educational/scientific purposes by not trimming any relevant footage. I've cut out 13 minutes in the middle of the video where view into the box was completely blocked by the body of a possum and also skipped over the 30 minutes the python was out of the box swallowing its prey, but I have left the rest. This means the video is overly long and somewhat tedious to watch—but my intent was to educate rather than amuse. Please don't be angry at the python. It's a native animal and ringtails are its natural prey.

Old Movies

These are some movies from the original Possum TV site. The possum box movies were not recorded by the Possum TV Server (which didn't exist at that time), instead, they were recorded to VCR and then uploaded over firewire via a video camera. This method was cumbersome, however the videos produced do have the advantage of higher resolution (720x576) and a soundtrack.

Thumbnail	Details	Comments
	Date: 12/2004 File Size: 1.5 MB Time Period: 0:00:09 Download View on YouTube	Ginger Grabbing Gingerbread. This is the first movie we made of any possum. Ginger had a habit of snatching or lunging at any food offered to her. We soon worked out more efficient (but less amusing) ways of feeding her than the technique shown here.
	Box: 1 Date: 11/8/2005 File Size: 3.2 MB Time Period: 0:00:42 Download View on YouTube	Cocoa Leaping. Baby Cocoa leaping all over her long-suffering mother, Ginger, and generally tumbling around. This video shows why you shouldn't leave any sharp edges inside a possum box.
	Box: 1 Date: 11/8/2005 File Size: 3.6 MB Time Period: 0:00:55 Download View on YouTube	Cocoa The Pest (Part 1) Baby Cocoa trying Ginger's patience.
	Box: 1 Date: 11/8/2005 File Size: 1.5 MB Time Period: 0:00:21 Download View on YouTube	Cocoa The Pest (Part 2) Baby Cocoa continues to pester her mother Ginger, who is trying to sleep.
	Date: 9/2006 File Size: 6.6 MB Time Period: 0:00:56 Download View on YouTube	Baby Queek nibbling at a carrot. Queek nibbles on his first carrot while clinging to Cocoa's back. Blackbeard (the dominant male brushtail in the area) skulks in the background.
	Date: 9/2006 File Size: 7.7 MB Time Period: 0:00:43 Download View on YouTube	Cocoa Vents Her Rage Cocoa, irritated by the presence of Olaf, ferociously attacks him and drives him off. She is still in a bad mood when her son Queek arrives.