Fun Facts About Flying Squirrels

There are two species of flying squirrels living in the forests of North America: southern and northern. They prefer forests with ample tree canopy.

Flying squirrels don’t really fly, they glide – like superheroes with a cape! Imagine you are wearing a blanket on your back, and it’s attached to your wrists and ankles. On a flying squirrel, this is called the patagium. It’s similar to gliding with a parachute. This article, in the Journal of Mammalogy, compares flying squirrels to hang gliders.

The tail of the flying squirrel has smooth fur and is horizontally flat. It is used as both a rudder and a stabilizer during glides.

Flying squirrels live in holes in trees or build nests of leaves and twigs. They have been known to use nest boxes and sometimes even kick birds out of their nest boxes while eating their eggs!

They store acorns for winter. They also eat fruit, other nuts, insects, and mushrooms.

Southern flying squirrels are about as common as the Eastern gray squirrel, but we seldom see them because flying squirrels are nocturnal. Notice the giant eyes in the photo below of a Carolina northern flying squirrel.

Photo credit: Corinne Diggins, Virginia Tech/USGS VCFWRU

The Carolina northern flying squirrel is an endangered subspecies of the northern flying squirrel. It lives at elevations 4,500 feet above sea level or higher. As of 2015, its habitat had been reduced to nine mountain peaks in the southern Appalachians. Scientists refer to these fragments of habitat as “sky-islands”.