What is the maximal age a Southern flying squirrel reaches?
An adult Southern flying squirrel (Glaucomys volans) usually gets as old as 12 years.
Southern flying squirrels are around 39 days in the womb of their mother. When born, they weight 3 grams (0.01 lbs) and measure 4.8 cm (0′ 2″). As a member of the Sciuridae family (genus: Glaucomys), a Southern flying squirrel caries out around 3 little ones per pregnancy, which happens around 2 times a year. Fully grown, they reach a bodylength of 12.7 cm (0′ 5″).
As a reference: Usually, humans get as old as 100 years, with the average being around 75 years. After being carried in the belly of their mother for 280 days (40 weeks), they grow to an average size of 1.65m (5′ 5″) and weight in at 62 kg (137 lbs), which is obviously highly individual.
The southern flying squirrel or the assapan (Glaucomys volans) is one of three species of the genus Glaucomys and one of three flying squirrel species found in North America. It is found in deciduous and mixed woods in the eastern half of North America, from southeastern Canada, to Florida. Disjunct distribution for populations of this species have been recorded in the highlands of Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras.
Animals of the same family as a Southern flying squirrel
Not really brothers and sisters, but from the same biological family (Sciuridae):
- Caucasian squirrel with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Buller’s chipmunk with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Hagen’s flying squirrel getting as big as 24.8 cm (0′ 10″)
- Little ground squirrel with 7 babies per pregnancy
- Red squirrel becoming 12 years old
- White-tailed antelope squirrel becoming 5.75 years old
- Black giant squirrel becoming 10.08 years old
- Ribboned rope squirrel with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Cream-coloured giant squirrel growing to a mass of 1.16 kgs (2.56 lbs)
- Yellow ground squirrel with 5 babies per pregnancy
Animals that reach the same age as Southern flying squirrel
With an average age of 12 years, Southern flying squirrel are in good companionship of the following animals:
- Long-tailed chinchilla usually reaching 11.25 years
- Ground cuscus usually reaching 12 years
- Pampas fox usually reaching 13.67 years
- Banded linsang usually reaching 10.67 years
- Parma wallaby usually reaching 10 years
- Greater fairy armadillo usually reaching 12 years
- Myotis vivesi usually reaching 10 years
- Blue duiker usually reaching 12 years
- Common noctule usually reaching 12 years
- Coypu usually reaching 12 years
Animals with the same number of babies Southern flying squirrel
The same number of babies at once (3) are born by:
- Nyika rock rat
- Hairy harvest mouse
- Pampas fox
- Northern grasshopper mouse
- Columbian ground squirrel
- Savanna path shrew
- Oligoryzomys nigripes
- Alpine pika
- Narrow-striped marsupial shrew
- Borneo black-banded squirrel
Weighting as much as Southern flying squirrel
A fully grown Southern flying squirrel reaches around 72 grams (0.16 lbs). So do these animals:
- Mountain spiny pocket mouse with 74 grams
- Northern collared lemming with 58 grams
- Broad-striped tube-nosed fruit bat with 85 grams
- Aegialomys xanthaeolus with 79 grams
- Chestnut white-bellied rat with 81 grams
- Strong-tailed Oldfield mouse with 77 grams
- Southern mole vole with 80 grams
- Stolzmann’s crab-eating rat with 84 grams
- Long-eared chipmunk with 83 grams
- Big-eared climbing rat with 86 grams
Animals as big as a Southern flying squirrel
Those animals grow as big as a Southern flying squirrel:
- Mole-like rice tenrec with 10.3 cm (0′ 5″)
- Pousargues African fat mouse with 11.6 cm (0′ 5″)
- Himalayan water shrew with 10.7 cm (0′ 5″)
- Gray-tailed vole with 11 cm (0′ 5″)
- Lowland mosaic-tailed rat with 12.8 cm (0′ 6″)
- Vordermann’s flying squirrel with 14.8 cm (0′ 6″)
- Van Deusen’s rat with 13.5 cm (0′ 6″)
- Northern hopping mouse with 10.3 cm (0′ 5″)
- Black-tailed dasyure with 10.8 cm (0′ 5″)
- Alpine chipmunk with 10.4 cm (0′ 5″)