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Sugar Glider
Photo: C & D Frith
Australia's Cape York Peninsula
Sugar Glider: Petaurus breviceps
The sugar glider is extremely agile and can glide, or volpane,
for at least fifty metres.
To take off, it thrusts its hind legs and leaps forwards into the
air, immediately spreading out flaps of skin, or membranes, at either side of its body to
assist 'flight.'
To land, it folds its hind legs in towards in towards its body and
with a final upward swoop lands on all fours.
Sugar gliders prefer eucalypt woodlands and rainforests where
tree hollows are available for shelter and there is an abundant food source of eucalypt
sap and acacia gum.
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