Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

The sugar glider's dis­tri­b­u­tion cov­ers New Guinea and cer­tain nearby is­lands, Bis­mark Arch­i­pel­ago, and north­ern and east­ern Aus­tralia. (Grizmek, 1990, http://​www.​evansville.​net/​%7Empzoo/​4whenarr.​htm., Nowak, 1997)

• Biogeographic Regions
• australian
  • native

Habi­tat

Sugar glid­ers can live in forests of all types, given that there is an ad­e­quate food sup­ply. They build their nests in the branches of eu­ca­lyp­tus trees in­side their ter­ri­tory. Since they have also been found to live in­sSouth­ern Aus­tralia, they must be able to deal with the cold ef­fec­tively. (Grizmek, 1990, Nowak, 1997)

• Terrestrial Biomes
• forest

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

The sugar glider is a rel­a­tively small mar­su­pial; its head and body are ap­prox­i­mately 120-320mm long and the tail has a length of 150-480mm. Sugar glid­ers are gen­er­ally blue-grey­ish dor­sally while their ven­tral sur­faces are some­what paler. A dark stripe runs down the back from the pos­te­rior end to the nose, while sim­i­lar stripes are lo­cated on each side of the face run­ning from the eye to the ear. Much like fly­ing squir­rels, sugar glid­ers have a glid­ing mem­brane which ex­tends from the outer side of the fore foot to the ankle of the rear foot and may be opened by spread­ing out the limbs. The fe­male sugar glider also has a well de­vel­oped pouch. (Grizmek, 1990; Grove, 1996; http://​www.​evansville.​net/​%7Empzoo/​4whenarr.​htm; Nowak, 1997)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Average mass

  110 g

  3.88 oz

  AnAge

• Average basal metabolic rate

  0.517 W

  AnAge

Re­pro­duc­tion

Sugar glid­ers held in cap­tiv­ity have been found to live up to 14 years. Sex­ual ma­tu­rity in sugar glid­ers oc­curs late in the first year of life for fe­males and early in the sec­ond year for males. Sugar glid­ers have an es­trous cycle of ap­prox­i­mately 29 days. In Arn­hem Land in the North­ern Ter­ri­tory of Aus­tralia, there ap­pears to be no def­i­nite breed­ing sea­son. In south­east­ern Aus­tralia, how­ever, the young are born only from the months of June to No­vem­ber. Ges­ta­tion usu­ally lasts around 16 days. Sugar glid­ers usu­ally have a lit­ter size of 1-2, each of which weigh about 0.19 grams at birth. The young first leaves the pouch after 70 days, and after about 111 days, they leave the nest and be­come in­de­pen­dent shortly there­after. Fe­males are not preg­nant while the young is still de­pen­dent on them. Some­times fe­males may be­come hos­tile to­wards their young so that they will leave sooner and the fe­male may be­come preg­nant again. (Grove, 1996; Nowak, 1997)

• Key Reproductive Features
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual

• Average number of offspring

  2

  AnAge

• Average gestation period

  16 days

  AnAge

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)
  Sex: female

  236 days

  AnAge

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)
  Sex: male

  456 days

  AnAge

Lifes­pan/Longevity

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  14.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  14.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

Be­hav­ior

Sugar glid­ers are ex­tremely ac­tive an­i­mals that can glide up to 45 me­ters. They nest in groups of up to seven adult males and fe­males and their young, all of whom are re­lated. Groups of sugar glid­ers are mu­tu­ally ex­clu­sive and ter­ri­to­r­ial. Each group de­fends a cer­tain num­ber of eu­ca­lyp­tus trees which pro­vide the group with its sta­ple food source. The adult males of the group reg­u­larly mark this ter­ri­tory with their saliva and with the se­cre­tions of their anal, hand, and foot scent glands. Sugar glid­ers also have scent glands lo­cated on the fore­head and chest that are used by the males in a group to mark all of the other mem­bers. There is usu­ally one dom­i­nant male in each group of sugar glid­ers, who is re­spon­si­ble for most of the mark­ing of the ter­ri­tory and the group. This male is usu­ally heav­ier, pro­duces more testos­terone, and mates more fre­quently with the fe­males of the group. When an­other an­i­mal is de­tected that it does not be­long to the group be­cause it does not have the group scent, it is im­me­di­ately and vi­o­lently at­tacked. Within groups, no fight­ing takes place be­yond threat­en­ing be­hav­ior. Sugar glid­ers can also com­mu­ni­cate through the va­ri­ety of sounds they can pro­duce, such as an alarm call which sounds like the bark­ing of a small dog. The ter­ri­tory size of a group of sugar glid­ers is around 2.5 acres.

(Grizmek, 1990; Grove, 1996; Nowak, 1997; Smith, 1982; Stod­dart, Bradley, & Mallick, 1994)

• Key Behaviors
• motile

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

• Perception Channels
• tactile
• chemical

Food Habits

Sugar glid­ers are om­niv­o­rous. Sugar glid­ers are es­pe­cially found of the sweet sap which can be found in the eu­ca­lyp­tus tree. Their diet also in­cludes pollen, nec­tar, in­sects and their lar­vae, arach­nids, and small ver­te­brates. Dur­ing the spring and sum­mer months sugar glid­ers pre­dom­i­nately feed upon in­sects, mainly moths and bee­tles, and dur­ing the fall and win­ter months they feed on plant prod­ucts, such as eu­ca­lyp­tus sap and pollen. (Grizmeck, 1990; Grove, 1996; Nowak, 1997; Smith, 1982)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

There has been a re­cent boom in the Amer­i­can pet pop­u­la­tion of sugar glid­ers. Cur­rently, the USDA's guide­lines for own­ing and breed­ing sugar glid­ers in the United States varies from state to state. ( http://​www.​isga.​org/​; Grove, 1995)

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Sugar glid­ers are quite com­mon in Aus­tralia. (Nowak, 1997)

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

Other Com­ments

If the weather in a par­tic­u­lar area ever be­comes too cold or there are long pe­ri­ods of food scarcity, sugar glid­ers are able to fall into a state of brief hi­ber­na­tion. (Grizmek, 1990)

Con­trib­u­tors

Jason Pasatta (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

Grizmek, (1997) Grizmek's En­cy­clo­pe­dia Vol­ume 1, Mc­Graw-Hill Pub­lish­ing, New York, 318-324

Grove, R., (1995) Ruth's Sugar Glider Home Page, http://​www.​rtis.​com/​nat/​user/​regrove/​

In­ter­na­tional Sugar Glider As­so­ci­a­tion Home Page, http://​www.​isga.​org/​

Mesker Park Zoo Home Page, http://​www.​evansville.​net/​%7Empzoo/​4whenarr.​htm.​

Smith, A.P., (1982) Diet and feed­ing strate­gies of the mar­su­pial sugar glider in tem­per­ate Aus­tralia. Jour­nal of An­i­mal Ecol­ogy, 51, 149-166

Stod­dart, D.M., Bradley, A.J., & Mallick, J., (1994) Plasma testos­terone con­cen­tra­tion, body weight, so­cial dom­i­nance and scent mark­ing in male mar­su­pial sugar glid­ers. The Zo­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety of Lon­don, 232, 595-601

Nowak, R.M., (1997) Walker's Mam­mals of the World 5.1 On­line, http://​www.​press.​jhu.​edu/​books/​walkers mam­mals of the world/mar­su­pi­alia/marsupialia.​petauridae.​petaurus.​html.