paramore1/pets

I am a Sugar Glider, a small gliding possum. I am called a Sugar Glider because I like to eat nectar, although I also eat pollen, the sap produced by wattle and gum trees, and insects. My official name is Petaurus breviceps and I am somewhere in between my relatives, the tiny Feathertail Glider and the Greater Glider, in size - about 120 grams in weight, and 170 mm body length when fully grown.

But this is me when I was just three months old, and only weighed 40 grams. I had only been out of my mother's pouch a few days. I used to live in a colony of sugar gliders in a banana plantation, until one day the farmer came to cut down the banana plant that we were living in. My family members fled for safety and in the chaos, I lost my mother. Luckily, the banana farmer found me, together with my brother, in our nest and handed us over to the Tweed Valley Wildlife Carers.

We sugar gliders are social animals who like to live with lots of other gliders. The wildlife carers knew this and tried really hard to find a replacement family for my brother and me. At first, we started off with just the two of us, but by the time we were ready to face the world on our own, there were five of us living together. The other three gliders were orphaned too, and all were too young to fend for themselves, although some were a little older or younger than my brother and me. While we were in care, we were fed a special milk formula and nectar mixture for possums, and as we got older, we were introduced to all the native vegetation that we love to eat.

In our large aviary on the edge of bushland, we got bigger and stronger, and started to learn how to glide. We Sugar Gliders have a membrane - a flap of skin - which extends on each side of our bodies from our front to hindlegs. We can leap at least 50 meters from tree to tree by spreading this membrane. That's why we're called gliders.

When I was about 8 months old, the five of us were released. It was a "soft" release - a small door on the aviary was left open, and a rope extended from it to nearby acacia trees. We could come back for food and sleep in our nestbox, as we wished. And we did come back for a little while, until we felt sure enough in the big wide world. After a week though, we stayed where we belonged - in the bush.

Article by Sue Johnson

Just look at this gorgeous babe.wow now that is bright cobalt blue, I would dare say neon.

This cute fellow is more like the kind that migrate through my yard every year. I live in the migration path of the Mexican red tarantula.I am never afraid to pick them up.There are not nasty by nature only when they feel threatened.

Just look at the cobalt blue of this wonderful creature.

look at the kitties.