Ringwaldt, Elise M.Buettel, Jessie C.Carver, ScottBrook, Barry W.2026-06-272026-06-271749-4869PubMed:40437839WOS:001591609100001ORCID:/0000-0001-6737-7468/work/218726681https://hdl.handle.net/1885/733812099Visually apparent diseases are valuable for investigating and monitoring the occurrence and prevalence of pathogens in wildlife populations through passive monitoring methods like camera trapping. Rumpwear, characterized by visible clinical signs of hair breakage and damage on the lumbosacral region, affects common brushtail possums (Trichosurus vulpecula) across Australia. However, the etiology of rumpwear remains unclear, and the spatiotemporal factors are understudied. This study investigated the epidemiology of rumpwear in common brushtail possums at Adamsfield, Tasmania (Australia), and predicted rumpwear distribution across the Tasmanian landscape. We visually classified images of rumpwear clinical signs in 6908 individual possums collected from a 3-year camera trapping network. Our results revealed that: (1) adults were twice as likely to show signs of rumpwear compared to young possums; (2) rumpwear occurrence increased with the relative activity of possums at a site; and (3) prevalence of rumpwear was seasonal, being lowest in May (3.2%—late autumn) and highest in December (27.1%—early summer). Collectively, these findings suggest that the occurrence of rumpwear may be density dependent, the putative etiological agent seems to be influenced by seasonal factors or site use. Additionally, a convolution neural network (CNN) was trained to identify rumpwear automatically based on the manually (human-expert) classified camera trap images. Applying the trained classifier to 38,589 brushtail possum images from across Tasmania, the CNN predicted that rumpwear is widespread, with an overall prevalence of 18.6%. This study provides new insights into rumpwear epidemiology and identified factors for further investigating within this host–pathogen system.The authors acknowledge the Palawa and Pakana peoples of Lutruwita, the traditional custodians of the lands on which this research was completed. Ethics permits were obtained prior to this study through the University of Tasmania Animal Ethics Committee: A20295, A0017229; and the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania: FA20188, FA19056. Funding was provided by the Australian Research Council FT160100101 (Brook), LP180101251 (Carver), and the University of Tasmania Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. The authors declare no conflict of interest.13en© 2025 The Author(s).brushtail possumcamera trappingdeep learningdisease ecologyrumpwear202610.1111/1749-4877.12995105007112211