Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia, Infraclass: Marsupialia “Sugar Gliders get their name from their "sweet tooth" and because they have a fold of furred skin stretching from their forefeet to their hind feet which they spread out like a kite to help them glide through the trees searching for insects and nectar!”
Level of endangerment
“Unlike many native Southern Australian animals, particularly smaller ones, the sugar glider is not
endangered.”
But sugar glider’s several other relatives are endangered for example Leadbeater’s Possum and the Mahogany Glider. Sugar glider isn’t endangered because it is adaptable and capable of living for example in small bushes.
There’s a law that protects sugar gliders in South Australia.
Population
Usually sugar gliders live in groups of up to seven adults plus the little sugar gliders. Together they defend their territory and they also take care of each other especially when the female sugar gliders have babies.
Habitat
Sugar gliders live in eastern parts of Australia and in surrounding islands of Tasmania, Papua New-Guinea and Indonesia. They live in woods where they can find enough food and especially in woods that have eucalyptus trees in them. They are nocturnal, so they sleep in daytime and are wide awake at night.
Nourishment
Sugar gliders eat insects, small vertebrates and feed on the sweet sap of certain species of eucalyptus, acasia gum trees.
Breeding
The age of when they can reduce offspring varies slightly between males and females. The males reach maturity when they are 4-12 months old and the females when they are 8-12 months old. Living freely in the wild sugar gliders breed once or twice per year. Their breeding depends on the climate and habitat conditions. If the conditions are great and the climate is too they can breed multiple times a year. Usually the mom sugar glider has one or two babies at a time. The gestation period is 15-17 days, after that baby sugar glider crawls in the mother’s pouch and begins to grow. The baby sugar glider stays 60-70 days in mother’s pouch and grows while drinking milk from her mother. Eventually the baby sugar glider comes out the pouch and will start to learn how to live in the outside world.
Peculiar habits
- Sugar gliders can glide (almost like a flying squirrel)
- Eats/drinks nectar
- They can fall into hybernation for a short period of time, when the weather in a particular area becomes too cold or there are long periods of food scarcity
Other information
You can get your own sugar glider an they are excellent pets!
Sources used
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