Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Diprotodontia > Petauridae > Petaurus > Petaurus breviceps

Petaurus breviceps (Sugar Glider)

Synonyms: Petaurus kohlsi

Wikipedia Abstract

The sugar glider (Petaurus breviceps) is a small, omnivorous, arboreal, and nocturnal gliding possum belonging to the marsupial infraclass. The common name refers to its preference for sugary nectarous foods and ability to glide through the air, much like a flying squirrel. They have very similar appearance and habits to the flying squirrel despite not being closely related, an example of convergent evolution. The scientific name, Petaurus breviceps, translates from Latin as "short-headed rope-dancer", a reference to their canopy acrobatics.
View Wikipedia Record: Petaurus breviceps

Infraspecies

Petaurus breviceps ariel (Sugar glider)
Petaurus breviceps biacensis
Petaurus breviceps breviceps (Sugar glider)
Petaurus breviceps flavidus
Petaurus breviceps longicaudatus (Long-tailed sugar glider)
Petaurus breviceps papuanus (New Guinea sugar glider)
Petaurus breviceps tafa

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
5
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
26
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 10.53
EDGE Score: 2.45
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  110 grams
Birth Weight [2]  .19 grams
Diet [3]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Carnivore (Vertebrates), Nectarivore, Granivore
Diet - Invertibrates [3]  40 %
Diet - Nectar [3]  30 %
Diet - Seeds [3]  20 %
Diet - Vertibrates [3]  10 %
Forages - Arboreal [3]  100 %
Female Maturity [1]  7 months 26 days
Male Maturity [1]  1 year 3 months
Gestation [1]  16 days
Litter Size [1]  2
Litters / Year [1]  1.3
Maximum Longevity [1]  18 years
Nocturnal [3]  Yes
Snout to Vent Length [4]  7 inches (17 cm)
Weaning [1]  4 months 2 days

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
East Melanesian Islands Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu No
Wallacea East Timor, Indonesia No

Prey / Diet

Banksia ericifolia (Heath-leaved Banksia)[5]
Eucalyptus pilularis (blackbutt)[5]

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Morelia spilota spilota (Diamond python)[6]
Ninox connivens (Barking Boobook)[7]
Ninox strenua (Powerful Boobook)[8]
Varanus varius (Lace Monitor)[9]

Consumers

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 2Petaurus breviceps, Meredith J. Smith, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 30, pp. 1-5 (1973)
♦ 3Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 4Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 5"Diet of Petaurus breviceps (Marsupialia: Petauridae) in a mosaic of coastal woodland and heath", J Howard - Australian Mammalogy 12, 1989, p. 15-21
♦ 6Feeding Habits of the Diamond Python, Morelia s. spilota: Ambush Predation by a Boid Snake, David J. Slip and Richard Shine, Journal of Herpetology, Vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 323-330, 1988
♦ 7BREEDING-SEASON DIET OF A PAIR OF BARKING OWLS NEAR ARMIDALE, NEW SOUTH WALES, S. J. S. DEBUS, J. A. FORD and A. B. ROSE, Corella, 2005, 29(1): 15-16
♦ 8Diet and habitat of the powerful owl (Ninox strenua) living near Melbourne, Elizabeth Lavazanian, M. App. Sc. thesis, Deakin University (1996)
♦ 9Diet of the Lace Monitor Lizard (Varanus varius) in south-eastern Australia, Brian W. Weavers, Australian Zoologist, Vol. 25(3) 83-85
♦ 10International Flea Database
♦ 11Species Interactions of Australia Database, Atlas of Living Australia, Version ala-csv-2012-11-19
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0