With so many weird and marvelous marsupial to hog the limelight , Australia ’s greater gliders have been largely overlooked , to the point we have only now learn there are three species , not one . However , this makes one of them even more endangered than antecedently thought .
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree - dwelling animals learned the advantages of gliding to lam predators or reach out food as far back asthe Jurassic . Quite distinguishable families of mammals have evolve pelt flaps to extend their range , butDr Kara Youngentobof the Australian National University told IFLScience this can blot out their major difference .
peachy sailplane populate an vast area of Australia that also extends to the wet tropics . accordingly , even after losing much of their habitat to last summer ’s bushfires , they are only classified as threatened . However , pouched mammal expert Stephen Jackson long agonoted differencesin the size , fur color , and free energy outlay of gliders by neighborhood , and suspect they actually represented three species , with each being far more qualified and therefore vulnerable .
Youngentob is part of a team that has confirmed Jackson ’s theory by test the genomes of gliders from Victoria to North Queensland . InScientific Reports , they give the existing namePetauroides volansto the southern greater glider , now quite likely very endangered after so much of its territory burned . The namesP. minorandP. armillatushave been given to two Queensland metal money .
" There has been hypothesis for a while that there was more than one specie of greater glider , but now we have proof from the DNA . It changes the whole path we guess about them , ” said James Cook University Ph.D. pupil Denise McGregor in astatement .
Petauroides small-scale ( top left-hand ) , P. armillatus ( bottom left ) P. volans ( right ) . Even to the uninitiated , some of the deviation between the species are seeable . Steven Kuiter
Greater gliders prey alone on eucalyptus leave . Although normally abundant , these are very low in energy , causing koala ’s illustrious sleepiness . Youngentob said greater gliders are likewise unenrgetic . Although sometimes thought of as declamatory cousins of the evenly lovely sugar gliders , Youngentob told IFLScience each evolve glide independently . Sugar gliders ' gamy - energy dieting make them “ acute small woodland pixy ” , and Youngentob said she has “ literally seen them go laps ” around greater gliders .
Indeed , all three enceinte sailplane species are so reluctant to waste energy that Youngentob said they are sometimes capture for study by shooting out the branch they are ride on , at which point they glide to the ground . “ Sometimes it take a few shots , which are really loud , ” Youngentob said , “ And they ’re just sit there and looking at you as if to say , ' What are you doing ? ' ”
variance in their over-the-top shadow was one of the features that alarm Jackson to the metal money divisions . Youngentob differentiate IFLScience their tails are not used to grip branch but to play as a counterweight while sitting and as a rudder while glide . In the mating season , gliders frequently care to sit together with their tailcoat wrapped around each other , a fact that might go some style towards achieving Youngentob ’s goal of build public pressure to salve them . “ They ’ve played second fiddle to koalas for too long , ” she said .
