The Sugar gliders are so called due to loving sweet food. The best-known glider in Australia, this marsupial has a small, softly-furred body with a rather bushy and prehensile tail. But the sweet amplifier of their name is a reference to their nutritional preferences, specifically their love of nectar, pollen, tree sap and other natural delicacies. Sugar glider shares similar habits and appearance with the Flying squirrel, although these two animals are not close relatives. It comes from the fact that, well, they glide (more on that in minute). They have soft pink noses, pink paw pads, and large ears and eyes for nighttime navigation. They sport a dark stripe spanning from their forehead and down their spine. Sugar gliders are covered in pale gray to light brown fur, with lighter coloring on their bellies. Their average lifespan in the wild ranges between 3 to 9 years, and they have been known to live more 17 years in captivity.Īnd boy are they cute.

(Their body is about 5 to 6 of those inches.) And these little fellas don't weigh much either full-grown males top out at about 5 ounces (141 grams) and females at about 4 ounces (113 grams). The average sugar glider is only about 9 to 12 inches (22 to 30 centimeters) long, from head to tip of tail. Those joeys don't grow to be very big either. Mothers have one to two joeys per litter. After 15 to 17 days of gestation, sightless and furless sugar-glider joeys crawl from their mother's uterus into her outer pouch to develop further. Their reproduction process is similar to that of kangaroos and other marsupials. For instance, a sugar glider may hiss at another to tell him to get out of the way, and they make soft purring sounds when they're content. They use a complex scent-based communication system - each animal 'marks' with his or her signature scent, and the dominant male marks his family members with his saliva.īut sugar gliders also communicate via sounds the San Diego Zoo describe as 'yapping, barking, buzzing, droning, hissing and screaming.' Each noise means something different. They spend most of their time high in the trees where the find food and shelter. They live in small colonies with a half dozen to 10 adults and kids. Most sugar gliders are very social, nocturnal animals.

Flying sugar glider