Smallest gliders are in our backyard

Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority project officer Janice Mentiplay-Smith said the glider used its long, brush-like tongue to feed on grains of pollen, small insects and drops of nectar.

“As a nocturnal marsupial, it spends its nights busily searching for food, gliding 20 or more metres between trees,” Ms Mentiplay-Smith said

“Narrow-toed feather-tailed glider toes contain ‘suction cups’ that enable it to climb almost any surface, including vertical panes of glass.

“This glider lives in communal nests of up to 30 individuals for warmth, safety and probably convenience.

“Females typically give birth to two litters of up to four young in a season.

“If she conceives a second litter before the first litter is weaned, the second litter enters ‘embryonic diapause’, meaning the embryos remain static and do not develop until the female is able to fully commit her energy to gestation.”

Like many small mammals, this tiny glider can enter a state of torpor (a form of short-term hibernation) when the temperature cools or when food becomes scarce, by slowing its breathing and heart rate to conserve precious energy.

“Unlike a true hibernation, torpor only lasts for short periods. As this little glider is unresponsive during torpor, it’s at greater risk of predation,” Ms Mentiplay-Smith said.

“We often think of foxes being the ‘baddie’ when it comes to the survival of native wildlife, but domestic cats are just as much of a culprit if not worse.

“It is important to keep your cat confined at night, as these introduced predators easily prey upon the unsuspecting and vulnerable glider and will decimate populations in an area so successfully, that they become locally extinct in just one generation.”

Read more about the narrow-toed feather-tailed glider and other mammal species present in the Goulburn Broken catchment’s grey box grassy woodlands environment in The Mammal Book.

To view the book, visit the Goulburn Broken CMA website.