When Squirrels Fly

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Their most significant differences are in their habits and habitats. The northern flying squirrel is truly northern; it lives in much of Alaska; coast-to-coast throughout the lower two-thirds of Canada; and down into the United States from New England, west to New York and across the northern portions of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Farther west, it inhabits much of Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Its range also extends down the cool-climate boreal spines of the Rockies to Colorado, the Sierras through most of California, and in scattered populations in the Appalachians from West Virginia to western North Carolina.

Despite its Dixie-esque name, the southern flying squirrel ignores the boundaries of the Mason-Dixon Line entirely and ranges throughout the whole eastern half of the United States from New England to Florida and west all the way to the eastern edge of the Great Plains and into central Texas.

Like all members of the squirrel family (Sciuridae), both northern and southern flying squirrels are nuts about nuts. But as a native of northern coniferous forests and high-elevation habitats where nut-bearing hardwoods are all but nonexistent, the northern flying squirrel relies mostly on a diet of lichens and fungi. It’s especially fond of underground truffles, which it digs up from the forest floor and devours on the spot.

Southern flying squirrels also eat lichens and fungi, but in their neck of the woods deciduous trees reign supreme, so nuts — particularly hickories and acorns — make up the better part of their diet. Both species also eat other foods, including a variety of berries, seeds, fruit and — brace yourself if you’ve been charmed by these critters’ innocent looks — fresh meat. Flying squirrels are the most carnivorous of all tree squirrels and conduct nighttime aerial raids in search of eggs, nestling birds and infant mice and voles.

Flight Fantastic

Of course, what intrigues humans most about flying squirrels is their ability to do what we can only attempt — with varying degrees of failure — to imitate: fly though the air with the greatest of ease. Never mind that flying squirrels don’t actually fly (a feat limited among mammals to bats), but instead glide. If as a child you wrapped a blanket “cape” around your shoulders and leaped off a bed, chair or garage roof (what were you thinking?), you know too well that gliding from point A to point B without breaking point C — any one of your bones — is no easy feat. Even if you never stopped trying to fly and now are among those thrill-seeking skydiver types who leap out of planes or off yawning precipices — the truth is you and your parachute still don’t measure up to the flying squirrel’s aerial abilities.

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