Flying squirrel

About: Flying squirrel is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 360 publications have been published within this topic receiving 5689 citations. The topic is also known as: flying squirrel.

A test of non‐kin social foraging in the southern flying squirrel (Glaucomys volans)

Abstract: It can be challenging to understand the evolution of sociality, particularly the occurrence of co-operation by non-kin. Southern flying squirrels (Glaucomys volans) are an interesting example of non-kin co-operation because of the mutual benefits obtained by social thermoregulation during winter. Because group survival confers benefits to the entire group, flying squirrels may also follow an aggregation economy, whereby co-operative foraging during winter is advantageous. However, the extent of such social foraging in flying squirrels is unknown. We tested for social foraging of southern flying squirrels, and also for relatedness among foraging groups. To determine the structure of foraging groups, we set up and remotely monitored feeding stations and nest cavities. All squirrels at the study site were tagged with passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags and nests and feeding stations were monitored with automated PIT-tag recorders for a 24-month period. Squirrels were found most often foraging alone. Squirrels that were recorded foraging together comprised unrelated individuals that were also found to share nest cavities. Squirrels were also recorded travelling farther distances between nest cavity and feeding station in the winter season than in the summer season, suggesting that, during winter, squirrels trade-off proximity to food caches for membership in a nest group. Our data suggest that squirrels forage and cache alone in their summer home range and make solitary returns to this summer range to collect their cache during the winter months, despite exhibiting social winter nesting. © 2014 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2014, 113, 1126–1135.

Responses of New World flying squirrels to the acute stress of capture and handling

Abstract: Northern ( Glaucomys sabrinus ) and southern ( G. volans ) flying squirrels have glucocorticoid (GC; stress hormone) levels higher than most vertebrates but virtually no binding capacity for these GCs via the carrier protein, corticosteroid-binding globulin. Thus, their total GCs are essentially all free and biologically active. However, the GC estimates come from blood samples taken after squirrels had been in live traps, and thus in a stress-induced state. Obtaining baseline values for physiological variables is valuable for assessing the response of vertebrates to stressors in their environment. We compared baseline plasma total cortisol levels (within 3min of capture) to stress-induced levels (after 30min of trap restraint) in both flying squirrel species. We recorded baseline cortisol levels that were some of the highest ever reported for mammals, indicating their stress axes operate at a higher set point than most other species. As part of the stress response, we also measured 4 indices in addition to cortisol. Total cortisol and free fatty acids increased in both species, as predicted. In contrast with our predictions, blood glucose and neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio showed no overall change, and hematocrit decreased significantly. New World flying squirrels therefore appear to have a stress response that differs from many other mammals. The selective forces driving the physiology of these animals remain elusive, but this lineage may provide an interesting comparative system for the study of stress axis function and its evolution among vertebrates.

Description, Hosts, and Ecology of Ixodes Kuntzi N. Sp., Kuntz's Taiwan Flying Squirrel Tick (Ixodoidea: Ixodidae)

Abstract: Ixodes kuntzi n. sp., described from numerous collections of females, nymphs, and larvae made at elevations between 210 m and 2400 m (chiefly 900–2100 m) in the southern two-thirds of Taiwan, commonly parasitizes flying squirrels ( Petaurista lena and P. grandis ) living in tall trees. Other hosts, recorded only for immature stages, are the Red-bellied Squirrel ( Callosciurus erythraeus centralis ), Striped Squirrel ( Tamiops swinhoei formosanus ), Field Mouse ( Apodemus semotus ), Spinous Country Rat ( Rattus c. coxinga ), White-bellied Rat ( Rattus culturatus ), and House Rat ( Rattus rattus ), as well as a Nuthatch ( Sitta europaea ). All hosts were in or closely associated with rich, dense rain forests at lower altitudes or with semi-deciduous broad-leaf forests at upper elevations. The male of I. kuntzi was not collected; it probably does not feed and is confined to nests of hosts of other stages of this tick.