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Sugar Glider
Photo: Courtesy of Harold & Paula Ables
Sugar Glider: Petaurus breviceps
- Other common names include the Sugar Squirrel, Lesser Flying
Squirrel, Short-headed or Lesser Flying Phalanger, and Lesser Glider.
- Sugar Gliders are marsupials.
Characteristics:
- The sugar glider is a fairly small possum
(shorter in body length than the average black rat) with a gliding membrane down
the side of its body. It is light grey with a dark stripe down the
middle of its forehead and along its back. There are also black stripes along
the limbs. The tail is well furred and of a more or less uniform thickness,
often with a white tip. As with all gliders, the tail is not prehensile - it
cannot curl it. Tails are often discarded by owls. (Script: Courtesy of Environmental Protection Agency)
Adults
- Blue-grey to brown-grey on dorsal surface, with a dark mid-dorsal stripe from
between eyes to mid-back. Cream to Pale-grey underside.
- Tail grey to brown and sometimes tipped with
white or black.
- Length: head and body 16-21cm, tail 16.5-21 cm.
- Weight: male 140g, female 120g.
Juveniles
- Blue-grey to brown-grey on dorsal surface, with a dark mid-dorsal stripe from
between eyes to mid-back. Cream to Pale-grey underside.
-
Their tail tip is white when young and turns grey when the fur gets
longer.
Gliding:
- Sugar gliders often exploit patchy food resources by gliding, as this proves
efficient, and also possibly a way to help them avoid predators.
- The gliding membrane is called a patagium.
- They do not use their tails for holding onto
branches. They use it like a rudder for flying.
- When leaping from a tree, it spreads out its
membranes that extend from the fifth finger to the first toe of the foot on
each side of the body, steering and maintaining its stability by varying the
curvature of the left or right membrane.
- It brings its hind legs in towards its body when about 3m from a target tree, and
with an upward swoop, it lands with its four feet in contact with the bark.
- They can glide up to fifty metres in length.
Viewing Opportunities:
- Honey mixtures are placed on viewing platforms at Chambers Wildlife
Rainforest Lodge each evening for them to feed.
- Viewings can be expected every night in
normal weather conditions.
Habitat and Distribution:
- There are 7 recognised subspecies of sugar gliders, 4 of them in New Guinea.
- They prefer patchy, open forest were it has enough
space to glide from tree to tree.
- Density is often highest in open forest habitats in
south-eastern Australia where access to acacias is readily available.
- They
also often thrive in strips and patches of forest remaining on cleared
agricultural land and have therefore not suffered as much as some other
possums.
- It is locally common, with up to at least 10 per hectare, in areas where tree
hollows are available for shelter and abundant food supplies are present.
- The Sugar Glider nests in tree hollows are usually leaf lined.
- Their nest is notorious because of the foul
smell that comes from it. This is because the animal urinates on the leaves in
order to keep them down.
Diet:
- Feed on gum produced by Acacias, and saps of certain Eucalypts.
- They also eat
invertebrates, invertebrate discharges and small animals such as baby birds and young
mice.
Social Behaviour:
- Live in social groups with up to seven adults
and their young sharing one common nest, although in summer these groups often
break up.
- Individuals are recognised by their odour as they have well developed
scent-marking glands, especially in the males.
- Males have two scent glands. One is the bald spot on the
top of his head. The second is a tiny bald spot on his chest. Females have a
scent gland in their pouch.
- Sugar gliders make many different sounds.
- Their playful sounds are like a
tiny puppy making a half barking sound.
- They make a chattering, growling
kind of grumpy sound when they are frightened or upset.
- Babies make a tiny squeak
or peep sound to call their mother.
- Have calls of shrill yapping which warns others of danger approaching.
- Also have
a sharp scream during fights
Breeding and Young:
- Males give off an odour during breeding, they
usually only produce an odour when mating.
- Though breeding can take place at any time of the year,
it usually begins in August.
- A male establishes his right to mate with a female by
rubbing scent from his forehead onto her chest. The female chooses her partners
by rubbing her head on the scent glands of the preferred males' chests.
- After a gestation period of about 16 days
a female produces 2 offspring. Dependant on their mother, they are blind
and weigh 0.19 of a gram.
- The mother helps her newborn into the pouch
where each immediately latches on to one of her four nipples. They develop
quickly on her protein-rich milk, they stay inside the pouch for about 70 days.
- They are then deposited in the group nest
for a further 30 days. They begin to leave the nest to forage (usually with their mother)
at 100-110 days
(about 15 weeks) old.
-
They are displaced from their maternal groups when they are 7-10 months old. They
may then travel across land to reach isolated forest habitats. If an older female in the
group dies, another female offspring may be recruited to take her place, but solitary
adults from nearby territories usually replace males that die.
-
Due to predation by owls, kookaburras, goannas and cats, mortality during the
first year of life is high. New groups are therefore rarely formed with time to establish
themselves.
Additional Information:
- Sugar gliders can live as long as 15 years.
- The Sugar Glider was introduced to Tasmania in 1835.
- Populations of the sugar glider appear to be stable. They can tolerate a wide
range of temperatures – in extremely cold conditions, it huddles with others in its
leaf lined nest hollow to conserve energy, or becomes torpid (inactive).
- There predators include owls, kookaburras, goannas and
cats.
Additional Information:
Courtesy of
Damon Ramsey
-
The younger members of the group are
usually evicted before 12 months of age, and subsequently there is a high rate
of mortality for young gliders (Egerton 1997).
-
As with other gliders, scent and
smell are important in social interactions.
-
Recent research indicates secretions
from the dominant males can suppress reproductive activity in the other males in
the group (Egerton 1997).
Script:
Courtesy of Damon Ramsey BSc.(Zool) Biologist Guide
Sugar
Gliders of the Lamington National Park
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