How to differentiate Australian/Indonesian glider?

hello everybody..im new in this forum,please guide me if im wrongly posted a new thread here..

as far as i know, sugar glider are native to Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea, and the neighboring islands of Indonesia. Sugar gliders can be found in wooded forests where there is plenty of rainfall and where Acacia Gum and Eucalyptus trees are found, as in the wild, that is their main food source.

my question is, how would it be characterized physically according to their origin country?? because some of the breeder here claims that their joey are Australian breed which is rare here..most of glider here were originated from Indonesia..

anybody can enlight me? thanks in advance!

Wow what a great question.

Sure am waiting anxiously for someone to pop up with a good answer.

I may have to email a friend about this one...

thanks for your reply JillMarie

all right,im waiting.. = )


psst; i've heard that australian breed are quiet bigger and heavier in size compared to other breed..does it true?

or else. it the white sugar glider is the be the species or because it is albino

Hi Kepan and welcome to Glider Central!

Very interesting question indeed. I am moving this topic to Behavior & Anatomy for you.

@rhompee - i think white suggies are species and albino are not..i'm just guessing ;p

gizmo >> thanks a bunch mis mod!!

nobody is helping..i have done googling around but theres no hint i get.. helppp

Hi,
I am new here too. I found a web site called S&S Gliders that have the Caramel colored Indonesian gliders. The lady talks about her travels over there and it is interesting to read about the gliders. Seems they are a new sub-species. Hope this helps.

http://www.glidercentral.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/1105628/1

Check out that thread. Marz lives in australia, maybe you can send a PM with your questions!! That thread also shows pictures of some gliders from australia & they deff look different

btw janet, S&S is a mill breeder. I too read about her carmel gliders. Tyler (gliderboygliders) also has some as well.... there are a few threads about them, just use the search feature

allright thanks for that link..it helps alot ;D

anyway as addition, this video helps alot too!

http://[non_supported_link]/watch?v=5ZusPLqFbkk utube ;p

we can clearly seen the suggies natives from Aus are big in sized, darker in colour, had a round face and etc..just sharing!

Here's the video. Just click to play.


Works in preview but not in the thread?

I think I am going to keep my eye on this thread!

There's only one type of sugar glider. But there are species of GLIDERS.
For instance, white sugar gliders (leucistics) and standard grays are both sugar gliders, just different colors.

Then there are glider species.

Your sugar glider of course.

Feathertail Glider
Natural Habitat: eastern seaboard of Australia




Squirrel Glider
Natural Habitat: south-eastern Australia




Greater Glider
Natural Habitat: southern Queensland, eastern Australia, southeastern New South Wales, and the montane forests of the Victorian central highlands.




Mahogany Glider:
Natural Habitat: between Ollera Creek south of Ingham and Tully in North Queensland, Australia.




Yellow Bellied Glider
Natural Habitat: altitudes over 700m above sea level. With natural discontinuities and habitat clearing there are 13 different populations in three distinct places to find this glider. One population resides on Mount Windsor Tableland, another on Mount Carbine Tableland, and the third lives in a linear habitat going from Atherton to Kirrama on the Atherton Tableland. These three populations together are estimated to contain around 6000 individual gliders. With their habitat in danger the Yellow-bellied Glider is classified as uncommon to rare and is named vulnerable to the tropics.


(Info gathered primarily from Wiki)

You may find this article interesting:

http://suggiesathome.com/2011/05/05/australian-or-indonesian/

There you go Kapan.

How breathtaking, to see them in the wild!!! Loved the white tip too!

I agree!! That video was great watching them, especially when the tail would come in and under like its going to stop them when they hit the tree lol.

There are different subspecies of sugar gliders. My own are Petaurus breviceps breviceps . I've lost count the times people from the US have told me I have squirrel gliders because they look different to the ones they own....

I can't find out anything about petaurus breviceps breviceps.

In Australia we have three subspecies.

Petaurus breviceps breviceps (Waterhouse, 1839)
Petaurus breviceps longicaudatus (Longman, 1924)
Petaurus breviceps ariel (Gould, 1842)

Have any web links? I was looking for links to read about them.

You could probably find something but whether it's accurate or not is another thing. Wikipedia for instance lists the Petaurus breviceps biacensis as a sugar glider sub- species it is actually Petaurus biacensis - not a sugar glider at all. Their listing of the New Guinea glider subspecies is also incorrect but that's understandable as there has been less research there and even one author over the years has changed his listings as he researched gliders in PNG himself.

I tend to stay away from web references sticking mostly to research papers and text books for my information. They aren't always correct either but least it's not tainted by laymen adding thier own interpretations to things. Only drawback is the money I have spent of the 400+ books and magazines. My husband patiently keeps building me bookshelves

bozeman,
that video was great. loved to see the gliders glide like
that.

regards,
nancy in detroit

Wow... learn something new every day.
And on this mammalian classification site they even have 4 subspecies listed : http://www.bucknell.edu/msw3/browse.asp?id=11000157

SUBSPECIES breviceps
SUBSPECIES ariel
SUBSPECIES longicaudatus
SUBSPECIES papuanus

Hmmm... wonder where they found the 4th one???

edit:sorry to repeat, my reading comprehension skills are lacking

The first three are Australian

The fourth one is the Papua New Guinea (also Indon) species of which there are supposively two subspecies of that ..the flavidus and the tafa

So there are a total of 5 subspecies between the Australian and PNG/Indon gliders? So are they all mixed up in the US? Does anyone here know what subspecies of glider they own aside from Marz?

I think there are actually 7 subspecies. Yes, they are all mixed up over here in the U.S. Well, maybe I shouldn't say that. Several subspecies are mixed together here. We are hoping to find out more regarding which subspecies are dominant here through the study that is currently being conducted regarding sugar glider DNA.

The caramel gliders are the b.flavidus subspecies. They are fairly new here in the states so we shouldn't see much of their DNA floating around just yet. Other subspecies, have been bred together and that is why some gliders are larger, some smaller, short snouts, longer snouts, etc.

The amount of subspecies gets a little murky because of the PNG/Indo ones... some of named subspecies are actually synonyms for other subspecies so it really does get confusing. The biacensis mentioned on some sites as a subspecies is not a subspecies at all. If you saw images of it, you would see why.
The P.b. flavidus is actually the main PNG subspecies accodingly to researchers. My friend breeds these in Indonesia and his gliders come from all over there including the Moluccas. He has flavidus subspecies in a range of colours from standard grey to an amazing golden lion colour (unlike the caramel). As there are species restricted to islands/areas, they do tend to breed in colonies type which include size and colouring... hence the "caramels" that are now being talked about which came from a particular area. Here in Victoria, there is an area near the coast that has amazing chocolate coloured sugar gliders in the wild.

I'm assuming they all look about the same then?

I have always referred to them as tribes, as in our american indians.. the indians are not of different species, but tribes of the human species. looking at them as tribes allows for the various variants..

I'd be more interested in what physiological and anatomical changes constitutes the different species

Not really. Unlike captive bred gliders who get sold and shuffled around, wild gliders stick to a region/forest/habitat. This can influence the breeding, the physical traits, the size etc.

A good example is size as Bergmann's rule really seems to apply here in Australia with gliders larger in the cold areas and smaller in the hotter areas as a general rule. This is not particular to gliders either. Take for another example the koala...all koalas are the same right? Nope. The Queensland koala is tiny compared to the Victoria Koala and even their looks and colours vary depending on what region they are from. All very interesting and all can be very confusing.

Definitely both. I wish I could find [more] info. I'd love to learn more.

The Feathertail Glider is Precious! Never seen anything like it before.

Looked up some info on them - They're so tiny and it seems they have a very high metabolism that makes them high maintenance. Makes me wonder - Are these domesticated like our gliders?

I love marz's glider pic. That is soooo cute. His great big ears are adorable. I had never seen pics of the various kinds of gliders. I just assumed they were all like ours just in different colors. The really tiny one looks a little too mouse like for me though!!!!

Thanks Marz. I get it now.

Connie: I read that the little one is often referred to as a mouse glider.

I prefer the term captive bred to domesticated but that might just be me with the wildlife rescuer side of me showing

The feathertail gliders are precious . As for being in captivity, you will find them in some zoos around the world. Until recently, here in Victoria, you would only captive bred ones in zoos/sanctuaries/wildlife parks too. However, last year, they added feathertail and squirrel gliders to the wildlife licence in Victoria so if someone has a wildlife licence (which you need to have gliders here) then you can keep these animals too.

At this stage, I do not have any plans on keeping any. After spending sometime behind the scenes at the nocturnal house at Healesville Sanctuary, I realised that for something so tiny, they require a lot of special care and they are fairly shy...you wouldn't be handling these little guys much at all as they are highly stressful. You are right about the high metabolism. The keeper explained that going 24 hours without food can potentially be enough to kill these lttle animals. There is a strict diet regimen to be followed.

a species is a group that is capable of reproducing and creating viable young (ie: can breed/survive) a tiger and lion can reproduce but their young are not viable. so if we have been mixing the "species" and we still have breeding/healthy gliders than can we really call them different species... A german pointer and lab look completely different and are the same species.

Tigers and lions can produce viable young, it's just that they would not do so in the wild because their territories do not cross.

With sugar gliders, we are talking subspecies, not distinct species. As a quick note - lets pull this back to sugar glider subspecies rather than general gliding possums, please.

ligons and tiglers offspring can not reproduce i thought? and have health issues?

THAT was fabulous!!!! gorgeous! amazing!! exhilarating!! breathtaking!! adorable! terrifying! and WOW! just So great!! Thanks Liezl!!

Great video!

sorry its been a while im not logged in..busy with my works

okay thanks everybody for sharing those great ideas regarding general gliding possums, there's a few to be mentioned.

its quiet difficult to differentiate from which subspecies is your glider are (from the naked eye) without pictures right? physically..

so im pasting mine..which i believe is Indonesian breed..its quiet rare to find any Australian breed right here in malaysia..i got no clues to differentiate! ;p

my glider -






lillipilly, courtesy of Marz pic


as far as this thread goes, i've made my assumption..Australian breed are much more heavier n bigger in size, have a darker gray color, have a round face and eyes are slightly smaller than indonesia breed..

correct me if im wrong