The Virginia Flying Squirrel

“Northern Virginia Flying Squirrel”

The northern flying squirrel is a small creature that spends most of its time in trees. They have large black eyes, round like ears, and long whiskers. Their fur has a variety of colors such as: gray, silver, and brown, and their bellies are mostly white, with a lead color at the base. These cute furry animals have what is called a “flight membrane,” which is also a patagium that extends from their hands to their feet. The patagium is an elastic and retractable, allowing them to very quick when climbing and running. The squirrels do not exactly fly like a bird but glides, by stretching out their limbs so that their “flight membrane” looks like a sail, as they jump off a branch; they use their body to move themselves in the air. These squirrels’ can glide over 100 feet or around 30m (Jameson&Peters, 1988). Their flatten tail is 40 percent of their total of their body weight, and also acts as a stabilizer when they are gliding, and helps them land.

The northern flying squirrels shed once a year in the autumn; they are clean animals that spend a large part of the day grooming. Adult squirrels go from 25 to 37 cm in length and weigh around 110g to 230g (Wells-Gosling 1985). Just like most animals, the flying squirrels have a call that sounds similar to other squirrels, but can also chirp notes like a bird. They have many predators but the Great Horned Owl is the main predator.

The northern flying squirrels can be found in coniferous forests, and deciduous forests. In the western part of their habitat, they would live in an open forest with spruce and cedar trees. In the east, they would live in a mixed forest of birch and hemlock. The northern flying squirrels live in nests in the summer and interior dens in the winter, or for the birth of their babies (Website1). They will usually nest in an abandoned woodpecker nest or a hollow of a tree; they make insulate them with leaves, dried grass, and other things like: feathers, fur, lichen, and shredded vegetation. They will have their young in an interior den and then will move them to the nest, and will move around depending on the seasons. These types of squirrels eat all sorts of foods such as: seeds, nuts, berries, curtain leaves, buds, mushrooms, acorns, flowers, fruits, fungi, lichen, sap, insects, and even bird’s eggs. Although these squirrels do not hibernate, they will save up food for the winter. They also like to eat meat, in which case is a big reason for them getting killed, by getting caught in a trap meant for other animals.

At the end of March and the beginning of April starts their mating season. The male will usually be driven away from their mate before the young are born, and will have a nest close by. The female is territorial, where the male is not (Mammath and Mulhesien,1996). The babies will be born in late April to June, and only one litter is born a year and the average litter size is three, but is possible to have as many as six (Malamuth and Mulheisen). The gestation period for the northern flying squirrel is 37-42 days, and are born naked, deaf, blind, hairless, and weigh anywhere from 5-6 grams. In nine weeks they will be weaned and become more independent for themselves.