- Sugar gliders get their name from their love of sugar and their innate ability to glide from tree to tree using the webbed area between their body and back legs along with their tails.
- The sugar glider is a marsupial, like a kangaroo or wombat.
- Sugar gliders only weigh about 4 ounces as full-grown adults.
- Sugar gliders are able to glide over 150 feet.
- In the wild, when a sugar glider launches himself from a tree, he spreads his limbs.
- The gliding membranes of a sugar glider are located from his wrists to his ankles and open up to slow his descent, much like a parachute.
- A sugar glider can change the curvature of the membrane by moving his legs to regulate his glide, and also uses his tail (which is as long as his body) like a rudder.
- Sugar gliders, like kangaroos, have a pouch where baby gliders, called joeys, live for 60-70 days. At around 4 months of age, joeys are able to survive on their own outside the pouch.
- In the wild, sugar gliders live in trees, and rarely, if ever, touch the ground.
- Sugar gliders nest in holes in old growth trees and mark their nests with urine.
- In the wild, sugar gliders can live in groups of up to 15-30 gliders.
- Sugar gliders have opposable fingers and toes.
- Sugar gliders are found in Australia, Tasmania, Indonesia, and New Guinea. Their scientific name is Petaurus breviceps and are in the same order as kangaroos, opossums, wombats, and Tasmanian devils.
