Animal · United States, Canada, Mexico
Southern flying squirrel
Glaucomys volans — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The southern flying squirrel is a small night-time squirrel of North American woods that glides from tree to tree on flaps of skin between its legs. It cannot really fly, but it steers well.
Picture credit: Judy Gallagher (CC BY 2.0) · Joshua Mayer (CC BY-SA 2.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the southern flying squirrel live?
Home: Old deciduous and mixed woods of eastern North America.
In the wild it lives in these countries: the United States, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras.
Conservation status from the IUCN: not in danger.
The short profile
Fully grown: 13-15 cm long, plus a flat tail of 8-12 cm. It weighs about 0 065 kilograms. On the menu: both plants and meat.
The story behind it
This squirrel is barely longer than a pencil and weighs about as much as a chicken egg. Between its wrists and ankles it has a loose flap of furry skin, the patagium. When the squirrel jumps, the flap opens like a kite and carries it across a gap between trees, usually a few metres, sometimes more than forty. The flat tail works as a rudder and a brake, so the animal can swerve around branches and land softly, head up, on the next trunk. It sleeps by day in a hollow tree, often with several others curled together to stay warm, and comes out after dark for nuts, seeds, mushrooms, insects and birds' eggs. Under ultraviolet light its fur glows pink, which scientists only noticed a few years ago.
Find it on the globe
Southern flying squirrel is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
Can a flying squirrel really fly?
No. It has no wings and cannot flap, so it cannot gain height. It glides downwards on a flap of skin between its front and back legs, a bit like a paper plane, and steers with its tail.
How far can a southern flying squirrel glide?
Most glides cover only a few metres from one trunk to the next, but a squirrel starting high in a tall tree can cross more than forty metres in one go.
Why do flying squirrels come out only at night?
In the dark it is harder for hawks to spot, and its huge eyes gather enough light to find branches and food. By day it sleeps in a tree hole, sometimes with several others huddled together.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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