Travancore Flying Squirrel

About this species

Size

Head and body about 32cm; tail 25–29cm

Diet

Mainly fruit; also bark, shoots, leaves and sometimes insects

Range

Western Ghats of southern India and Sri Lanka

The Travancore flying squirrel is a nocturnal, mainly fruit-eating flying squirrel. It is reddish brown above with ruddy-tinged greyish underparts, black whiskers, soft lustrous fur and a feather-shaped tail with a blackish underside. Head and body length is about 32 cm and the tail 25–29 cm. It also eats bark, shoots, leaves and sometimes insects (Wikipedia, general species account).

It occurs in the Western Ghats of southern India, and in Sri Lanka where a separate subspecies lives. It was thought to be extinct until it was rediscovered in Kerala in 1989, after a gap of about 100 years. It was later confirmed in Sri Lanka, 78 years after the previous record there (Nanayakkara et al. 2013, as reported on Wikipedia). The cached account of the species is short.

Description: Wildlife of India guide, Wildlife of Everywhere (wildlifeofeverywhere.com); general species information paraphrased from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)