It’s been a little while since we talked about an animal that’s so unimaginably cute that it couldn’t possibly be real. Bonus: this one’s from my favorite tiny continent.
Today’s Moment of Science… The Sugar Glider.
You’d be easily forgiven for mistaking this majestic floof for an exotic flying hamster. However, sugar gliders are more closely related to wombats than rodents. One of eight known species of gliding possums, they’re native to New Guinea and Australia.
‘Straya, you were just gonna keep quiet about those other species of heartbreakingly cute airborne marsupials? Rude.
The membrane that stretches between their wrists and ankles, the patagium, works like a built-in, steerable BASE jumping suit. There are few hypotheses on its evolutionary development and what the patagium did for possumkind. Their gliding ability could have given them the advantage of a quick escape from less gravity resistant predators. When these nocturnal buggers soar from tree to tree, they avoid landing on the forest floor where they’re most likely to become a midnight snack.
There’s also the theory that it gave them the ability to search far and wide for the important things in life: food. And fucking. Speaking of, females have two uteri. Correspondingly, the males have a bifurcated penis. That’s science talk for “they’ve got two-headed dicks.”
(I should just pack it in now because you perverts are already googling that, it’s a sight I cannot possibly compete with, subscribe to my patreon, thx).
Now that three of you are back. Their diet in the wild could best be described as “yes,” living on insects, fruits, vegetables, acacia gum, various plant saps, bird eggs, and fungi. Pollen also makes up a large chunk of their diet in the wild, so their fuzzy flying tuchuses act as pollinators.
In the wild they typically live nine years, twelve in captivity, with the longest reported lifespan extending to almost eighteen years.
“Ms. Auntie SciBabe, that is an excellent lifespan for a beloved family pet CAN I HAVE ONE?” Legally, the answer is “depends on where you live.” Ethically, unless you’re adopting one that’s in a rescue that was already taken from the wild and you have a lot of time, I’m leaning no. For three reasons.
First, I’m not sure you want one.
They can get depressed without at least one itsy friend, and something that cute being depressed is genuinely upsetting. Their dietary needs can be difficult to replicate in captivity, so to avoid deficiencies, supplementing with calcium and vitamin D is recommended. I don’t know how hard it is to pill a tiny windborne wallaby with brittle bones and an intense odor but that’s not the life for me.
Second, about the smell.
You’ll find a bunch of websites letting you know that if a sugar glider smells, it’s because of an incorrect diet or because you’re just not scrubbing their cage every hour. But in reality, these maddeningly adorable pissers will mark their territory with the scent glands on their head. And by urinating goddamn everywhere. So when they pee on you, they’re really telling you how much they care. Or that they want a cricket, idk.
Third, if you’re in the US, that might not technically be a sugar glider. Well, not anymore.
It seems like somewhere in the attempt to survive Australia’s vermicious knids, what was one has evolved into three. A 2020 study examined the morphology and genetics of these ambitious gerbils from across Australia, and though it’s not official, it seems pretty clear that there are three species of gliders. The one most common in the US is Krefft’s glider.
A marsupial by any other name would smell as reek, and I’m just not sure anyone’s letting flap-flap chinchilla tinkle in their house unless it’s called a sugar glider.
This has been your Moment of Science, admitting that yes, I still fucking want one.
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