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You can tell a male from a female by the bald scent spot on the male's head.It can glide up to 50 meters in the dark.It has large bulging eyes with excellent night vision because it feeds at night.It lives in the tree tops of Eucalyptus and Acacia trees in northern, eastern and southern parts of Australia.The sugar glider cannot fly it can only glider.It has a thin membrane attached to its wrists and ankles that it unfolds and para-glides from tree to tree.The sugar glider animal is a small gliding marsupial possum.They are playful but will fiercely attack any intruder. Sugar gliders are very social and frequently nest together in groups of up to 6 animals, but they are solitary hunters. The sugar glider uses this mode of transportation to forage for food and to evade predators. It can glide up to 50 meters from tree to tree. It adjusts the angle and curvature of the membrane using its limbs to guide it through its flight. It spreads this membrane out and uses it like a para-glider. The sugar glider has a very thin skin, called a membrane, attached from each of its wrists to each ankle (like a flying squirrel).

The male is larger than the female and weighs approximately 140 gm. The sugar glider has large bulging eyes with excellent night vision that enables it the avoid obstacles when gliding at night. It is about 200-300mm in length, including its tail. The fur on the underside of its body is cream in colour. Sugar gliders are marsupial mammals and flying squirrels are placental mammals.The sugar glider has soft thick silver-grey fur on its upper body. The costs at a local vet to neuter a sugar glider can cost about $50 to $85.īy studying their genes and other traits, biologists have figured out that sugar gliders and flying squirrels are probably not very closely related. Some owners opt to neuter their sugar glider, especially if housing with other females. Let’s take a quick look at the differences between these two species.Įxperts highly recommend buying a sugar glider in pairs since they are very social creatures and can get lonely quite easily. Sugar gliders looks remarkably similar to the flying squirrels found in the US but in reality, these two animals are extremely different. Sugar Gliders and Flying Squirrels are both cute little animals that are popular pets. They do look similar although the sugar glider’s tail isn’t as fluffy as the squirrel’s.Īre suggar gliders and flying squirrels the same? Are sugar gliders the same thing as flying squirrels?Ī sugar glider is a marsupial and a flying squirrel is a rodent. This means that the ancestors of marsupial mammals and the ancestors of placental mammals were likely to belong to the same family. Sugar gliders and flying squirrels are also considered to be the product of convergent evolution. Why are sugar gliders and flying squirrels similar? Hand feeding and daily handling will help them bond with you. The first few weeks after bringing them home is the most important. If cared for properly, flying squirrels can be affectionate pets. They are the northern and southern flying squirrel.

A flying squirrel is from the rodent family, while a sugar glider is a marsupial. They’re similar in many ways, but they’re very different animals. What is the difference between a southern flying squirrel and a sugar glider?
