Night Gliding FUN FACT A sugar glider can glide up to 196 feet 60 meters That’s about half the length of a football field Night falls in the forest The large round eyes of a sugar glider open It is time to eat The mammal climbs out from its tree nest It travels across a limb Then it jumps The sugar glider spreads its four legs Thin skin stretches from its wrists to its ankles The skin acts like a kite It catches the wind The sugar glider soars from limb to limb It searches for its next meal Tree sap and insects are good finds A sugar glider is a marsupial like a kangaroo This is a kind of mammal Only three kinds of mammals can glide The sugar glider is one That’s one reason this animal makes a unique pet 4
The sugar glider's natural habitat is in Australia Tasmania Indonesia and Papua New Guinea These lands are in the Pacific and Indian Oceans There the sugar gliders live in forests These forests usually have acacia trees NORTH PACIFIC OCEAN PAPUA NEW GUINEA Indonesia Arafura Sea INDIAN Coral Sea OCEAN AUSTRALIA SOUTH PACIFIC OCEAN NEW ZEALAND Tasman Sea Tasmania
Sugar gliders are social animals They live in large groups ranging from 12 to 40 sugar gliders One or two males lead the group Females and children called joeys join the males They usually make their nest inside a tree hollow They line the hollow with leaves and shredded bark In the wild sugar gliders live in trees They rarely if ever touch the ground 7
