A dog discovered a tiny baby animal that had fallen off a tree. The animal was as small as a thumbnail, and a citizen brought the little baby to the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital in Beerwah, Queensland.
It turns out the animal was a tiny feathertail glider, it weighed less than a gram, and it was found by itself. The tiny little feathertail glider is the smallest gliding marsupial in the world, and they are found in Australia. The Wildlife Hospital named her ‘Boop,’ and the workers at the hospital are amazed that she survived.
She was lucky to be rescued without injuries after she fell from the high treetops, which is their natural habitat. The Australia Zoo Wildlife Warriors, which was started by Steve and Terri Irwin, wrote on Facebook, ‘After falling from her mother’s pouch, Boop luckily escaped any injury and will now receive round-the-clock care by a specialized wildlife carer until she is ready to return to the wild. Isn’t she precious!’
Another orphaned feathertail glider was found with Boop, and they named her Betty when she got to the Wildlife Hospital. They are being cared for at the hospital and are fed a milk formula through a very small tube.
Feathertail gliders are very small marsupials and grow to a maximum of only 80mm and weigh only up to about 15g. They have an incredible skill of gliding up to 25 meters at a time, according to the Australian Reptile Park.
They are nocturnal animals and are usually found in forests on the eastern coast of Australia and other parts of South Australia. They typically live in trees and branches and actually spend about 87 percent of their life at least 15 meters off the ground. They eat mainly insects, pollen, seeds, and nectar, and they can go into an interesting state called torpor where they hibernate, and their body drops to 36 degrees Fahrenheit, and they only use 1 percent of their typical oxygen consumption to stay alive.
Young feathertail gliders stay in their mom’s pouch for 65 days until they go on their own, so they will have to stay in the comfort of the Wildlife hospital for quite a while until they are strong enough to be released back into the wild.
