The Greater Glider – Is This the Cutest Wild Animal in the World?
Sunday, 5 April 2026
The Greater Glider is cute, but not many people get the chance to see one in the eastern Australian wilds it calls home. They are shy, solitary and nocturnal, yet one thing is certain – this endangered marsupial species has adorable down to a fine art. It was, until 2020, believed to be a single species, with variations according to habitat. After careful research using high-throughput genetic marker techniques, it was discovered that the genus Petauroides was not monotypic – it did not contain a solitary species, after all: there are three species of greater glider. Image
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| Southern Greater Glider |
So, what does one do when this happens? Keeping things simple and straightforward is always a good plan, so we now have the Northern, Central and Southern greater gliders – named after the regions of the range in which they are found. Just to make matters a little complicated, each species comes in two forms. The central greater glider is usually silvery-brown, while the southern greater glider is especially well known for having both dark and pale grey-white forms (the variation seems to be a normal colour morph rather than a sign that they are different sexes or ages. In other words: some are naturally darker, some paler).