Spend a night in the Queensland bush and you quickly realise how much happens after the sun goes down. Long after the last of the daytime birds have settled, the canopy comes alive with movement — soft scratching along a branch, a sudden rustle of leaves, the occasional chattering call that seems to come from nowhere in particular. Some of that activity belongs to a group of animals many visitors have heard of but few have ever properly seen: Australia’s gliding possums.

The squirrel glider (Petaurus norfolcensis) is one of the more impressive members of that group. It is bigger than the sugar glider, considerably bigger than the tiny feathertail glider, and capable of covering remarkable distances through the air between trees. It is also almost entirely nocturnal, which is exactly why so few people encounter one.

This guide covers what squirrel gliders are, what they look like, where they live, what they eat, how they glide, and how they differ from the sugar gliders they’re so often confused with. If you’re planning a trip to the Lockyer Valley — or looking at camping near Brisbane with a bit of genuine bushland attached — it’s worth knowing what might be moving above your head after dark.

What Is a Squirrel Glider?

The squirrel glider is a small-to-medium-sized nocturnal marsupial native to eastern Australia. Its scientific name is Petaurus norfolcensis, and it belongs to the family Petauridae, the group that also contains sugar gliders, mahogany gliders and yellow-bellied gliders.

Squirrel gliders are arboreal, meaning they spend the overwhelming majority of their lives in trees. They feed in trees, shelter in trees, breed in trees and travel between trees — descending to the ground is unusual and, for a small mammal with plenty of predators, risky.

The feature that makes the species instantly recognisable is the gliding membrane: a flap of loose skin, called a patagium, that stretches along each side of the body from the wrist of the forelimb to the ankle of the hind limb. When a squirrel glider leaps and extends its limbs, that membrane opens into a broad, kite-like surface. Instead of falling, the animal sails forward on a long, controlled descent.

It’s an elegant solution to a practical problem. Moving through a woodland canopy by climbing means constant detours — down one trunk, across open ground, up the next tree. Gliding removes most of that effort, and squirrel gliders can cover considerable ground in a single glide between trees. It saves energy, saves time, and keeps them well clear of ground-dwelling predators.

For anyone interested in Queensland native wildlife, the squirrel glider is a good species to know about. It is a genuine part of the state’s eucalypt woodland fauna, and it’s one of several native gliding mammals that can be active in bushland settings — including the kind of bush environment you’ll find around campgrounds in the Lockyer Valley.

One small piece of trivia worth clearing up: despite the species name norfolcensis, squirrel gliders are not found on Norfolk Island. The name comes from an early mislabelled specimen, and it has simply stuck ever since.

Squirrel Glider Quick Facts

A quick reference for the essentials.

Feature Detail
Scientific name Petaurus norfolcensis
Common name Squirrel glider
Family Petauridae
Activity Primarily nocturnal
Diet Omnivorous — nectar, pollen, sap, gum, invertebrates, honeydew
Habitat Eucalypt woodland and open forest with hollow-bearing trees
Shelter Tree hollows, lined with leaves
Social structure Often lives in family groups
Home range Commonly around 3–5 hectares
Typical lifespan Around 3–5 years in the wild
Queensland status Regarded as common

Scientific Name

Petaurus norfolcensis.

Common Name

Squirrel glider. The name refers to its bushy, squirrel-like tail rather than to any relationship with actual squirrels — squirrel gliders are marsupials and are not closely related to rodents at all.

Family

Petauridae, a family of Australian and New Guinean possums that includes several gliding species.

Activity

Primarily nocturnal. Squirrel gliders emerge from their hollows around dusk and remain active through the night.

Diet

Omnivorous, with a diet that shifts across the seasons:

  • Nectar and pollen from flowering trees and shrubs
  • Plant gums and eucalypt sap
  • Insects and other invertebrates
  • Honeydew, manna and other seasonal exudates

Habitat

  • Eucalypt woodland
  • Open forest
  • Bushland containing both food-producing plants and hollow-bearing trees

Shelter

Tree hollows are essential. Squirrel gliders line hollows with leaves to create a nest, and a single family group may use several hollows within its range.

Social Behaviour

Squirrel gliders are social animals and commonly live in family groups rather than alone.

Queensland Conservation Status

In Queensland, the squirrel glider is regarded as common, and this is worth stating plainly because the picture is quite different elsewhere. In the southern parts of its range the species carries a higher level of conservation concern, largely because woodland habitat there has been more heavily cleared and fragmented. A species can be secure in one state and under real pressure in another, and the squirrel glider is a clear example.

Being common in Queensland doesn’t mean the species is immune to habitat loss — it simply means that, at a state level, populations are not currently considered threatened.

What Does a Squirrel Glider Look Like?

If you do get a look at one, here’s what separates it from the other possums and gliders sharing the same woodland.

Size and Weight

Squirrel gliders are noticeably larger than sugar gliders, which is the single most useful identification cue for most people.

Measurement Approximate range
Head and body length 18–23 cm
Tail length 22–33 cm
Weight 190–300 g

That gives an adult a total length — nose to tail tip — of roughly 40 to 55 cm, most of which is tail. Males tend to be slightly heavier than females. At around 200 to 300 grams, a squirrel glider has a genuinely substantial body compared with the smaller gliders it shares the bush with, and it feels solid rather than delicate in the hand — not that you should ever be handling one.

Fur and Colouring

The fur is soft and dense, typically grey to grey-brown across the back and sides. Running from between the eyes, along the top of the head and down the back is a dark dorsal stripe, which can vary from a soft charcoal to a well-defined near-black line depending on the individual.

The underside is much paler — commonly cream, pale grey or off-white. The ears are relatively large and thinly furred, and the eyes are big and dark, both features you’d expect in an animal that navigates a three-dimensional environment in near-total darkness.

Appearance varies between individuals and across regions. Some animals are greyer, some browner, some have a more prominent stripe than others. Field guides describe an average; real animals don’t always read the field guide.

The Squirrel Glider’s Bushy Tail

The tail is one of the species’ most distinctive features. It is long — often longer than the head and body combined — and notably bushy, with the fur standing out along its full length rather than lying flat. The tip is usually darker than the rest.

That tail does real work. During a glide it acts as a rudder, and the animal uses it in combination with subtle limb adjustments to steer, correct its line and set up a landing. In the canopy it helps with balance while the glider moves along thin, flexible outer branches. It also assists with carrying nesting material back to a hollow.

Compared with the sugar glider, the squirrel glider’s tail is longer, thicker and considerably bushier. Where a sugar glider’s tail can look slim and tapering, a squirrel glider’s looks closer to a bottlebrush.

The Gliding Membrane

The patagium is the defining feature of the Petaurus gliders. It’s a fold of furred skin along each flank, anchored at the wrist and the ankle, that stays loosely tucked against the body when the animal is climbing or feeding. When the glider launches and stretches all four limbs outward, the membrane pulls taut and turns the animal into a broad, flat aerofoil.

An important clarification: squirrel gliders do not fly. They have no wings, no flapping motion and no ability to gain altitude. What they do is glide — a controlled, downward-angled movement from a higher launch point to a lower landing point, with the animal actively steering along the way. It’s much closer to a paraglider than a bird.

Where Do Squirrel Gliders Live?

Squirrel Glider Habitat in Australia

Squirrel gliders are distributed through eastern Australia, with the range extending from northern Queensland down the eastern side of the continent through New South Wales and Victoria, and reaching into south-eastern South Australia. The distribution isn’t a continuous blanket — it’s patchy, following the availability of suitable woodland.

Throughout that range the species is associated with eucalypt-dominated woodland and open forest. Dry sclerophyll woodland, box-ironbark forest and coastal or lowland eucalypt forest all support squirrel gliders where the right structural features are present.

Interconnected vegetation matters enormously. A gliding animal needs launch points and landing points within reach of each other. A woodland with a continuous or near-continuous canopy is functional squirrel glider habitat; the same number of trees scattered across open paddocks with big gaps between them is far less useful, even if the food is technically there.

Squirrel Gliders in Queensland

Queensland represents a substantial share of the species’ overall range, and the state’s woodland and open-forest environments provide a great deal of suitable habitat. This is a large part of why the squirrel glider is considered common here while carrying more concern further south.

Southeast Queensland supports squirrel gliders, and research in this region has found the species to be particularly associated with lowland eucalypt forests and woodlands. That’s a meaningful detail, because lowland country is also the country that tends to face the most development pressure — flatter, more accessible, more attractive for clearing.

The broader region takes in a wide sweep of habitat, from coastal lowlands through to the foothills and ranges west of Brisbane, including the Lockyer Valley and the country around the Great Dividing Range near Toowoomba.

Can Squirrel Gliders Live Near People?

Yes — sometimes surprisingly close. Squirrel gliders can persist in remnant bushland, bushland reserves and vegetated corridors within and around developed areas, and they have been recorded even in highly urbanised areas such as Brisbane where suitable vegetation remains.

The key point is that habitat quality matters more than distance from people. A patch of woodland with mature hollow-bearing trees, flowering eucalypts and a connected canopy can support gliders even if there are houses nearby. Conversely, a large area of bushland with no old trees, no hollows and no connectivity may not support them at all.

This is also why so many people who live near bushland have squirrel gliders as neighbours without ever knowing it. The animals are out at night, up in the canopy, and generally quiet about their business.

Squirrel Glider Habitat Requirements

Understanding what squirrel gliders actually need — rather than just “trees” — is the most useful thing you can take away from a species profile like this.

Hollow-Bearing Trees

Squirrel gliders shelter and breed in tree hollows. They cannot excavate their own, which means they are entirely dependent on hollows that form naturally.

Natural hollows are the product of decades of slow work: limb loss, fungal decay, termite activity, fire scarring and weathering, all gradually hollowing out the heartwood of a maturing eucalypt. Hollows of a size useful to gliders typically take many decades to form, and larger hollows take longer still.

A family group will usually have several hollows available within its range, using different ones at different times. That redundancy matters — it provides options if a hollow becomes unsuitable, is taken over by another animal, or is lost.

The implication is straightforward but often overlooked: when a mature hollow-bearing tree is removed, the hollow cannot be replaced within a human timeframe. Replanting is valuable for many reasons, but a sapling planted today will not produce a glider-sized hollow for a very long time. Old trees, including dead standing trees, are habitat infrastructure.

Connected Tree Canopies

A glider needs to be able to get from tree to tree. Where the canopy is continuous or the gaps are modest, a squirrel glider can move through its entire home range without touching the ground.

Where gaps become too wide, several things happen. The animal may be unable to reach parts of its range at all, effectively shrinking the usable habitat. Or it may be forced to descend and cross the ground, where it is slow, exposed and highly vulnerable to cats, foxes and dogs.

This is where habitat corridors come in — strips or stepping-stones of retained or planted vegetation that link larger patches of bushland. For a gliding mammal, corridors aren’t a nice-to-have. They’re the difference between one connected population and several small isolated ones.

Food-Producing Plants

Suitable habitat also has to feed the animals living in it. Squirrel gliders rely on:

  • Eucalypts — for nectar, pollen, sap and the invertebrates the flowers attract
  • Acacias (wattles) — a significant source of gum, particularly outside peak flowering periods
  • Banksias, melaleucas and grevilleas — additional nectar and pollen sources
  • Understorey shrubs — supporting invertebrate populations

Because different plants flower at different times, a diverse mix of species is far more valuable than a large stand of one. A woodland where something is producing food in most months can support gliders year-round. A woodland with a single spectacular flowering event and nothing else creates a serious seasonal gap.

Woodland Structure

Squirrel gliders aren’t simply dependent on trees in the abstract. The structure of the woodland matters: which tree species are present, how large they are, whether there’s an intact understorey, how dense the canopy is, and how many hollows are available.

Research in southeast Queensland has linked squirrel glider presence to particular eucalypt woodland characteristics, including the availability of larger trees and standing dead trees. Dead standing trees — stags — are often the first thing removed during tidying-up operations, and they’re frequently among the best hollow-bearing resources in a patch of bush.

Two areas can have identical tree cover on a map and offer entirely different value to gliders. Structure is the difference.

What Do Squirrel Gliders Eat?

Nectar and Pollen

Nectar and pollen are important seasonal foods. Nectar provides readily available carbohydrate energy; pollen supplies protein.

Flowering eucalypts are the mainstay, supplemented by banksias, melaleucas, grevilleas and other native flowering plants. Flowering is highly seasonal and often irregular between years, so the availability of these foods fluctuates considerably.

This is one of the more interesting ecological connections in the Australian bush: many native plants flower heavily at night and produce nectar accessible to nocturnal mammals, and gliders and other night-active animals move pollen between trees as they feed. The relationship runs both ways.

Tree Sap and Plant Gums

Squirrel gliders also feed on plant exudates — sap and gum produced by trees. They gouge or scratch the bark of certain eucalypts and acacias with their incisors, then return to the same sites to feed on the material that flows or accumulates there.

Acacia gum is particularly significant. It’s a sticky, carbohydrate-rich substance that wattles produce in response to bark damage, and it has a real advantage over nectar: it’s available on a fairly reliable basis rather than only during a flowering window.

This is why exudates matter so much. When flowering is poor — a bad season, a gap between events, a stretch of drought — sap and gum become a dependable fallback that helps carry a glider through. Habitat that includes good stands of wattle is meaningfully more resilient than habitat that doesn’t.

Insects and Other Invertebrates

Squirrel gliders are considerably more insectivorous than most people assume. Invertebrates are the main protein source, and gliders forage actively for them among foliage, under loose bark and on branch surfaces. Their diet includes:

  • Caterpillars and other larvae
  • Beetles
  • Moths
  • Spiders
  • Various other insects and invertebrates

Invertebrate abundance peaks in the warmer months, and squirrel gliders take full advantage of it, which is part of why an intact understorey and diverse vegetation matter — they support the insects that support the gliders.

Honeydew and Other Food Sources

Honeydew is a sugary substance excreted by sap-feeding insects, particularly scale insects and psyllids, as they feed on plant fluids. It accumulates on leaves and stems and is readily collected by gliders and other nocturnal mammals.

Manna — a sugary crystalline material that forms where eucalypt tissue has been damaged — is another opportunistic food source.

None of these foods are available consistently. Squirrel glider diet is best understood as seasonally flexible: nectar and pollen when trees are flowering, insects when they’re abundant, gums and exudates when the alternatives thin out. That adaptability is a genuine advantage, but it depends on the habitat offering enough variety across the year.

Are Squirrel Gliders Omnivores?

Yes. Squirrel gliders are omnivorous. Their diet combines plant-based foods — nectar, pollen, sap, gum and honeydew — with animal prey in the form of insects and other invertebrates.

Neither half is optional. Plant foods supply energy; invertebrates supply protein. A habitat that provides one but not the other is incomplete.

When Are Squirrel Gliders Active?

Nocturnal Behaviour

Squirrel gliders are primarily nocturnal. They spend daylight hours resting inside a leaf-lined tree hollow, typically with other members of their family group, and emerge around dusk.

The evening usually begins with a period of grooming and stretching near the hollow entrance before the animals move off into the canopy to feed. Activity continues through the night, with the gliders returning to a hollow before dawn.

Their large eyes are adapted for low light, and a strong torch beam directed straight at a glider is genuinely disruptive to it. This is why they are so rarely seen during daylight — by the time most people are out and about, squirrel gliders have been asleep for hours.

What Do Squirrel Gliders Do at Night?

A typical night involves:

  • Travelling through the canopy — climbing along branches and gliding between trees
  • Foraging for nectar and pollen at flowering trees and shrubs
  • Hunting invertebrates among foliage and under bark
  • Feeding on sap and gum at established gouging sites
  • Maintaining sap sites, reopening bark wounds to keep exudate flowing
  • Interacting with the family group through vocalisations and scent marking
  • Returning to a hollow before first light

Why Bush Camping Can Reveal Nocturnal Wildlife

Most Australians go their whole lives without seeing a glider, and it’s not because gliders are rare — it’s because the overlap between glider activity and normal human activity is very small.

Staying overnight in a bush setting changes that overlap. When you’re camped among trees rather than driving past them, you’re present during the hours when the bush is actually busiest. Even without a single sighting, the experience is worth having: the shift in soundscape after dark, the movement in the canopy, calls you can’t immediately place.

At Murphy’s Creek Escape, the unpowered bushland sites put you closest to that environment, while the powered sites offer the same bush surroundings with a few more conveniences. Either way, the interesting hours are the ones after sunset.

A realistic note, though: nobody can promise you a squirrel glider. Wildlife encounters come down to habitat, patience, timing and a fair amount of luck. Treat any sighting as a bonus rather than an itinerary item, and you’ll enjoy the night bush a great deal more.

How Do Squirrel Gliders Glide?

The Science Behind Squirrel Gliding

The mechanics are more sophisticated than “jumping with extra skin.”

A glide begins with the animal climbing to a suitable launch point, usually reasonably high in a tree. Squirrel gliders often pause before launching, moving the head from side to side — a behaviour that helps judge distance to the intended landing point through parallax.

The launch is a deliberate leap outward. As soon as the animal is airborne it extends all four limbs, pulling the patagium taut on both sides and turning the body into a broad gliding surface. Air moving across that surface generates lift, converting what would be a fall into a long forward glide.

Steering happens throughout. By adjusting the tension in each membrane independently, changing limb position and using the tail, the glider can bank, adjust its angle and correct its line mid-flight — which matters, because trees are not evenly spaced and the wind doesn’t cooperate.

Landing is the most demanding part. Approaching a trunk, the glider pulls up sharply into a nose-up posture to shed speed, then makes contact with all four limbs and grips with sharp claws. A landing squirrel glider often produces an audible thump against bark — one of the few times these animals are easy to hear.

The energy saving is the whole point. Descending one tree, crossing open ground and climbing the next is slow, expensive and dangerous. Gliding does the same journey in seconds, costs little more than the initial leap, and keeps the animal off the ground entirely.

How Far Can a Squirrel Glider Glide?

Squirrel gliders are capable of gliding up to around 90 metres between trees.

That’s the upper end rather than the everyday figure. Most glides are considerably shorter — a typical movement between neighbouring trees might be somewhere in the range of 20 to 50 metres.

Actual distance depends on:

  • Launch height — glides are downward-angled, so a higher launch allows a longer glide
  • Vegetation structure — how far apart suitable trees are and whether there’s a clear line
  • Landing options — the animal needs somewhere solid to arrive
  • Conditions — wind can extend or shorten a glide

The practical takeaway is that gliding has a limit. Once gaps in a landscape exceed what a glider can cross, the habitat stops functioning as a connected whole no matter how many trees remain.

Gliding vs Flying

Worth restating clearly, because it’s the most common misunderstanding about the species:

Flying (birds, bats) Gliding (squirrel gliders)
Structure True wings Membrane between limbs
Powered movement Yes — flapping generates thrust No
Can gain altitude Yes No
Direction of travel Any Downward-angled
Sustained flight Yes No — each glide ends at a landing

Squirrel gliders have no wings and cannot fly. Every glide begins higher than it ends, and every glide ends with the animal climbing again before it can launch the next one.

Squirrel Glider vs Sugar Glider: What’s the Difference?

These two species are confused constantly — and reasonably so. They’re closely related, share a similar body plan, occupy overlapping habitat and both carry a dark stripe down the back.

Squirrel Glider vs Sugar Glider Size

Size is the most reliable distinction.

Measurement Squirrel glider Sugar glider
Head and body length 18–23 cm 16–21 cm
Tail length 22–33 cm 16–21 cm
Weight 190–300 g 90–150 g

A squirrel glider is roughly twice the weight of a sugar glider. On paper the head-and-body ranges overlap slightly; in practice, the difference in bulk and tail length is obvious when you see either animal clearly.

Squirrel Glider vs Sugar Glider Appearance

Beyond size, useful cues include:

  • Face shape — squirrel gliders have a longer, more pointed muzzle; sugar gliders look shorter-faced and rounder
  • Tail — the squirrel glider’s tail is longer and distinctly bushier
  • Overall build — squirrel gliders look more substantial; sugar gliders look daintier
  • Dorsal stripe — present in both, which is exactly why it doesn’t help with identification

Both have large eyes, large thin ears and pale undersides. In a brief torchlight glimpse of an animal 15 metres up in the dark, confident identification is genuinely difficult, and honest uncertainty is a perfectly respectable outcome.

Squirrel Glider vs Sugar Glider Diet

Their diets overlap substantially. Both are omnivores taking nectar, pollen, sap, gum, honeydew and invertebrates, and both shift their emphasis seasonally.

The differences are matters of degree rather than kind, driven largely by body size. A larger animal has greater absolute energy requirements and a slightly different set of trade-offs in what’s worth foraging for. Both species rely heavily on acacia gum and eucalypt sap when flowering is poor.

Squirrel Glider vs Sugar Glider Habitat

Both occupy eucalypt woodland and open forest across eastern Australia, and their ranges overlap considerably — including through southeast Queensland.

Both require hollow-bearing trees, both need connected canopy, and both benefit from a diverse mix of food-producing plants. Where habitat quality is good, both can be present in the same patch of bush.

Which Is Bigger: a Squirrel Glider or Sugar Glider?

The squirrel glider. It is larger in body length, considerably longer in the tail, and roughly double the weight of a sugar glider.

Can Squirrel Gliders and Sugar Gliders Live in the Same Area?

Yes. The two species can occur together in the same habitat, and in parts of eastern Australia they routinely do.

Coexistence is possible because of differences in body size, foraging behaviour and resource use that reduce direct competition. In a woodland with abundant hollows and diverse food plants, there’s room for both. Where hollows are scarce, competition for shelter is far more likely to become an issue.

Squirrel Glider Behaviour and Social Life

Do Squirrel Gliders Live Alone?

No — squirrel gliders are social animals. They typically live in family groups that share a den hollow, commonly consisting of an adult male, one or more adult females and their dependent young.

Group members den together during the day, often in close physical contact, and interact regularly through the night while foraging. They also share the group’s home range and its resources, including established sap sites.

It would be a mistake to picture a squirrel glider as a solitary animal that happens to encounter others occasionally. The family group is the basic social unit of the species.

Squirrel Glider Home Range

A squirrel glider family group typically occupies a home range of around 3 to 5 hectares.

That’s a modest area, but only if it’s the right area. A five-hectare patch that contains multiple hollow-bearing trees, a connected canopy and a good mix of food-producing plants across the seasons is a functional home range. Five hectares of young regrowth with no hollows is not.

Group members share the range and move through it as food availability shifts through the year.

How Do Squirrel Gliders Communicate?

Squirrel gliders use a combination of vocal and chemical signals.

Vocalisations are the most noticeable to people. The species produces a range of calls, including a distinctive repeated, throaty, gurgling sound that carries surprisingly well through the bush at night. It’s often the first indication that gliders are around — and it’s a call many campers have heard without ever knowing what made it. Sharper chattering and hissing sounds are used in closer-range interactions.

Scent marking does the quieter work. Squirrel gliders have scent glands and use scent to mark group members, den sites and parts of the home range. This maintains group cohesion and communicates occupancy to neighbouring animals — a lot of information exchanged without a sound, which suits an animal trying to stay unnoticed by predators.

Physical contact — mutual grooming and huddling in the den — also plays a role in maintaining social bonds.

How Long Do Squirrel Gliders Live?

In the wild, individual squirrel gliders may live up to around six years, though three to five years is more typical.

As with most small mammals, mortality is highest in the first year, and the animals that reach an advanced age are the ones that avoided predators, entanglement hazards and the loss of their den tree. Animals in captivity, free of those pressures, can live longer than wild individuals.

Squirrel Glider Breeding and Life Cycle

When Do Squirrel Gliders Breed?

In Queensland, squirrel gliders breed across a period extending from June through to January, with one to two litters potentially produced in a year.

That’s a long breeding window, and it’s a sensible adaptation. It allows the species to take advantage of good conditions when they arise — a strong flowering season, plentiful insects — rather than being locked into a fixed schedule regardless of what the habitat is offering.

Whether a group actually produces two litters in a season depends heavily on food availability and the condition of the adults.

How Many Babies Does a Squirrel Glider Have?

Usually one or two young per litter.

Like all marsupials, squirrel gliders give birth to extraordinarily undeveloped young after a very short gestation. The newborn is tiny, blind, hairless and barely formed, weighing a fraction of a gram. Immediately after birth it makes its own way — unaided — from the birth canal to the mother’s pouch, where it attaches to a teat.

Effectively all of the development that other mammals complete inside the uterus happens instead inside the pouch. It’s a fundamentally different reproductive strategy, and it’s one of the defining features of Australia’s native mammals.

The Squirrel Glider Pouch

The female’s pouch is a forward-opening fold of skin containing teats. The attached young remains permanently fixed to a teat for the early weeks of pouch life, during which it grows steadily, develops fur, and eventually opens its eyes.

Over time the young detaches, becomes more mobile within the pouch, and begins to look out. Eventually it becomes too large for the pouch entirely, and the family’s tree hollow takes over as the nursery — the transition from pouch to nest.

Growing Up in the Tree Hollow

Leaving the pouch is not independence. Young squirrel gliders remain in the den hollow while the mother forages, and continue to suckle for a further period. As they grow, they start venturing out near the hollow entrance, then further along branches, and eventually accompany adults on foraging trips.

Learning to glide takes practice. Early attempts are short and clumsy, and skill improves with repetition — judging distance, controlling direction and landing cleanly all take time to develop.

Young remain within the family group well beyond weaning, dispersing at approximately 12 to 18 months of age to establish or join a group elsewhere. Dispersal is one of the riskiest periods in a glider’s life, and it’s also where habitat connectivity matters most: a young animal looking for somewhere to settle needs to be able to travel through the landscape to get there.

Where Do Squirrel Gliders Sleep?

Tree Hollows as Natural Homes

Squirrel gliders sleep in tree hollows during the day, usually with their family group. Hollows provide:

  • Protection from predators — a defensible space out of reach of most threats
  • Shelter from weather — insulation against heat, cold, wind and rain
  • A stable microclimate — considerably more even than conditions outside
  • A secure nursery — somewhere for dependent young to remain safely while adults forage

Because squirrel gliders cannot excavate hollows, they are entirely dependent on what the woodland already provides. Groups typically use several hollows within their range and rotate between them.

What Does a Squirrel Glider Nest Look Like?

Squirrel gliders build a nest inside the hollow using eucalypt leaves, which they carry back to the den and arrange into a rough, ball-like structure lining the cavity.

The result is essentially a leaf-lined chamber — insulated, soft and considerably more comfortable than bare timber. Nest material is replaced and topped up over time.

Why Old Trees Matter

Every element of this depends on mature trees. Hollows of a size suitable for gliders form over decades in older eucalypts, and they cannot be created quickly or replaced on demand.

Dead standing trees deserve specific mention. A stag may look like nothing more than a hazard or an eyesore, but it is frequently one of the richest sources of hollows in a patch of bush, and removing it can eliminate shelter for multiple species at once.

Protecting the old trees that already exist is one of the most direct contributions anyone can make to woodland wildlife — because unlike almost everything else in habitat management, this is one you cannot fix later.

Threats Facing Squirrel Gliders

The squirrel glider is regarded as common in Queensland, and that’s worth keeping in view. But “common” describes a current state, not a guarantee, and the pressures below are real ones — particularly in the southern parts of the species’ range, where they’ve already had a significant effect.

Habitat Clearing

Clearing of eucalypt woodland and open forest removes glider habitat directly and permanently, taking out:

  • Feeding trees — the flowering eucalypts, wattles and other plants gliders depend on
  • Nesting trees — mature hollow-bearing trees that cannot be quickly replaced
  • Connectivity — the canopy links that let gliders move through a landscape

The effect is compounding. Losing food trees puts pressure on remaining resources; losing hollows limits how many animals an area can shelter; losing connectivity restricts access to what’s left.

Habitat Fragmentation

Fragmentation is a particular problem for a gliding mammal, and it can happen even without much reduction in total tree cover.

When bushland is broken into isolated patches separated by cleared land, roads or development, gaps can exceed what a glider can cross. Populations become isolated, young animals struggle to disperse, genetic exchange between patches declines, and a local population that suffers a bad season has no easy way to be replenished from elsewhere.

Research in southeast Queensland has highlighted the importance of retaining lowland eucalypt forest and woodland and maintaining habitat linkages between areas. For a species that moves through the air rather than across the ground, the connections between patches are as important as the patches themselves.

Loss of Hollow-Bearing Trees

This deserves separate treatment because the timeframe is so unforgiving. Hollows suitable for squirrel gliders take many decades to form, and they cannot be manufactured on any useful schedule.

Hollow-bearing trees are lost to clearing, firewood collection, storm damage, hot fires and routine removal of dead standing timber. Each loss reduces the number of animals an area can shelter, and no amount of replanting recovers it within a human lifetime. Competition for the hollows that remain — with other gliders, possums, parrots, bats and introduced honeybees — makes scarcity worse.

Predators

As a small arboreal mammal, the squirrel glider faces predation from several directions:

  • Feral and domestic cats — capable climbers and highly effective hunters of small mammals
  • Foxes — a serious threat to any glider that comes to ground
  • Domestic dogs — a hazard where they roam unrestrained near bushland
  • Native predators — including powerful owls and other large forest owls, and arboreal snakes

Gliders are most vulnerable when forced to the ground, which is one more reason canopy connectivity matters so much. A glider that can complete its nightly movements without descending is a glider that has avoided most of this list.

Keeping pets contained — particularly at night, and particularly cats — is one of the more effective things individuals can do.

Barbed Wire and Entanglement

Barbed wire fencing is a specifically identified threat to squirrel gliders, and it’s a genuinely nasty one.

A glider descending on a flight path that crosses a fence line may be unable to see the top strand in the dark. The membrane, being thin and stretched taut in flight, catches on the barbs. An entangled glider cannot free itself, and the outcome is usually death by injury, exposure or predation.

It is also one of the more solvable threats on this list — plain wire, covered top strands or alternative fencing designs all reduce the risk substantially, particularly along fence lines that run between patches of vegetation.

How Can We Help Protect Squirrel Gliders?

Protect Existing Bushland

The most effective conservation action is protecting habitat that already works.

  • Retain mature trees, especially large old eucalypts
  • Protect hollow-bearing trees as irreplaceable habitat features
  • Leave dead standing trees where they don’t pose a genuine safety risk
  • Retain native vegetation, including the understorey
  • Manage weeds and fire in ways that maintain woodland structure

Protecting an existing patch of good habitat achieves in a day what restoration takes decades to approach.

Create Wildlife Corridors

Connecting isolated patches restores the ability of gliders to move through a landscape.

  • Plant native trees to narrow gaps between habitat areas
  • Retain scattered paddock trees, which act as stepping stones across open ground
  • Revegetate along creek lines, which naturally form connective corridors
  • Consider glide distances — the aim is to keep gaps within crossable range

Riparian corridors along watercourses are especially valuable, often supporting larger trees and linking otherwise separated areas of bush.

Use Wildlife-Friendly Fencing

Practical fencing measures make a measurable difference:

  • Avoid barbed wire where it isn’t strictly necessary, particularly along the top strand
  • Use plain wire as a substitute in and around bushland
  • Cover the top strand with poly pipe or similar where barbed wire must remain
  • Increase visibility with markers or tags so fence lines are easier to detect at night
  • Prioritise fence lines between vegetation patches, which sit directly across glider flight paths

Provide Suitable Nest Boxes Where Appropriate

Nest boxes are among the recognised mitigation measures for squirrel gliders, and they can provide alternative shelter in areas where natural hollows are limited.

They work best when they’re installed properly: designed for the target species, mounted at an appropriate height and orientation, positioned within existing habitat, and — importantly — monitored and maintained over time. A neglected nest box degrades, and can end up occupied by bees or introduced birds.

The essential caveat is that nest boxes are a supplement, not a substitute. They don’t match the thermal performance or longevity of a natural hollow, and treating them as a licence to remove old trees gets the equation exactly backwards. Retaining hollow-bearing trees comes first; nest boxes fill gaps.

Support Native Wildlife Conservation

Beyond individual properties:

  • Support reputable wildlife conservation organisations working on habitat protection and research
  • Join or assist local landcare and bushcare groups doing revegetation and weed control
  • Contribute to citizen science by recording wildlife sightings, which improves distribution data
  • Support responsible land management that retains vegetation and connectivity
  • Talk about it — a lot of habitat is lost simply because nobody realised what a dead tree was worth

Could You Spot a Squirrel Glider at Murphy’s Creek Escape?

Murphy’s Creek and the Lockyer Valley Bushland Environment

Murphy’s Creek Escape sits in the Lockyer Valley in southeast Queensland, in the country where the valley floor rises toward the Great Dividing Range between Toowoomba and Ipswich. It’s a bush property rather than a manicured park — gum trees, natural creek country and a good deal of retained native vegetation, with an eco billabong that serves as protected wildlife habitat.

That kind of setting is what makes the region worth visiting for anyone interested in Australian wildlife. Southeast Queensland’s eucalypt woodland supports a wide range of native species, and the Lockyer Valley’s mix of bushland, creek lines and rural country provides varied habitat within a relatively small area.

Squirrel gliders occur through southeast Queensland, and the wider region falls within the species’ range. Whether any particular property supports them depends on the specific factors covered above — hollow-bearing trees, canopy connectivity and year-round food. 

Why Squirrel Gliders Are Difficult to Spot

Even where they’re present, squirrel gliders are hard to see. They are:

  • Nocturnal — active only after dark
  • Arboreal — almost never on the ground
  • Often high in the canopy — well above eye level and screened by foliage
  • Fast-moving — a glide is over in seconds
  • Quiet in movement — capable of crossing between trees almost silently
  • Cryptically coloured — grey-brown fur disappears against bark and shadow

Add darkness to that list and it’s clear why sightings are uncommon. Plenty of people who live surrounded by glider habitat have never seen one.

When Might You Have the Best Chance of Seeing One?

If you’d like to improve your odds:

  • Around dusk and shortly after dark, when gliders leave their hollows and are most active near den trees
  • During quiet periods, when there’s less human noise and movement
  • Near flowering trees, which concentrate foraging activity
  • On mild, still nights, which generally see more wildlife activity than cold or windy ones
  • By listening first — the throaty, gurgling call often reveals a glider’s presence before anything is visible

The most effective approach is simply to sit still. Find somewhere comfortable, let your eyes adjust, keep the torch off, and pay attention to what you can hear. Chasing wildlife around in the dark is the surest way to see nothing at all — and it’s stressful for the animals.

Responsible Wildlife Watching at Murphy’s Creek Escape

If you’re out looking for nocturnal wildlife, a few basics matter:

  • Keep noise levels low — quiet hours run from 10 PM to 7 AM, and quiet also happens to be the best wildlife-watching strategy there is
  • Never feed wild animals — human food harms native wildlife and alters natural behaviour
  • Don’t shine bright lights directly into animals’ eyes — use a red filter or the dimmest setting that works, and keep the beam brief and indirect
  • Keep pets under control — leashed and contained at all times, particularly after dark
  • Observe from a respectful distance — no approaching, no touching, no handling
  • Don’t disturb hollows or nests — a disturbed den site may be abandoned
  • Leave wildlife exactly where you found it — including reptiles, frogs and insects
  • Stay on tracks and cleared areas at night, for the sake of the bush and your own footing

These principles apply to all the wildlife and outdoor activities around the property, day or night. Good wildlife watching and good camping etiquette are largely the same thing.

Other Native Wildlife You May Encounter Around Murphy’s Creek

The Sugar Glider

The squirrel glider’s smaller relative, the sugar glider (Petaurus breviceps), is the more widely known of the two — smaller, lighter, with a shorter and less bushy tail and a rounder face, but very similar in general appearance and behaviour. The two species share habitat requirements and can occur in the same areas.

Our full guide to the sugar glider covers its diet, behaviour and habitat in detail.

The Feathertail Glider

At the opposite end of the scale, the feathertail glider (Acrobates pygmaeus) is one of the world’s smallest gliding mammals — small enough to fit comfortably in the palm of your hand and weighing a tiny fraction of a squirrel glider. Its tail is the giveaway: flat and fringed with stiff hairs along either side, like a feather.

Set beside the squirrel glider, it shows just how much variation exists among Australia’s gliders. Read more in our guide to the feathertail glider.

The Brushtail Possum

The common brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) is a larger nocturnal marsupial and one of Australia’s most familiar native mammals. It doesn’t glide, but it shares the gliders’ reliance on tree hollows and their nocturnal habits — and it’s considerably easier to spot.

Together, possums and gliders illustrate the diversity of Australia’s nocturnal tree-dwelling mammals. Our guide to the brushtail possum has the full picture.

Other Queensland Bushland Wildlife

Southeast Queensland bushland supports a wide range of native wildlife more generally — woodland birds, reptiles, frogs, microbats and a variety of small mammals among them. What you encounter on any given visit depends on season, weather, time of day and a fair amount of chance.

For daytime wildlife watching, the region’s birdlife is the most accessible starting point, and bird watching at Murphy’s Creek Escape is one of the easier ways to get a feel for what lives in the local bush.

Plan Your Bush Escape at Murphy’s Creek Escape

Experience the Queensland Bush

There’s a difference between looking at bushland and staying in it. A night in the bush gives you the parts most visitors miss — the sounds after dark, the movement in the canopy, the way the place changes completely once the light goes.

Murphy’s Creek Escape sits within easy reach of Brisbane, Ipswich and Toowoomba, which makes it a practical base for a weekend without a long drive attached. It’s the Lockyer Valley at its most straightforward: bush, creek country and space to spread out.

Explore, Relax and Stay Overnight

The property offers a range of bush camping and accommodation options to suit different setups. Drive-in powered sites suit caravans, campervans and campers who want mains power, while unpowered bushland sites put you deeper into the natural setting for a quieter, more traditional camp.

Whichever you choose, the advice is the same: don’t pack up your evening too early. Stay out after sunset, keep the torch off for a while, and let the bush get on with what it does at night. And whether you’re walking, exploring or simply sitting by your site, enjoy the outdoors responsibly — quiet, low-impact visitors see far more wildlife than noisy ones.

Discover More Australian Wildlife

If this guide has you curious about Australia’s nocturnal mammals, there’s more to explore:

Each covers identification, diet, behaviour and habitat, and together they build a picture of the wildlife that shares the bush around the Lockyer Valley.

Book Your Stay at Murphy’s Creek Escape

If you’re looking for camping near Brisbane with genuine bushland rather than a car park with grass, Murphy’s Creek Escape is worth a look. Bring a chair, find a quiet spot, and give the bush a couple of hours after dark to show you what it’s got.

You might hear a glider. You might not. Either way, you’ll have spent a night somewhere worth being.

Plan your stay and see what’s available for your dates.