Gliding Mammals: Taxonomy of Living and Extinct Species

Gliding Mammals: Taxonomy of Living
and Extinct Species
Stephen M. Jackson, Department of Primary
Industries, Locked Bag 21, Orange, New South
Wales 2800, Australia. Richard W. Thorington
Jr., Division of Mammals, Smithsonian Institution,
MRC 108, P.O. Box 37012, Washington,
D.C., 20013- 7012, USA. Correspondence:
S. Jackson, stephen.jackson@industry.nsw.gov
.au. Manuscript received 15 June 2010; accepted
19 July 2011.
INTRODUCTION
Background
The world’s extant gliding mammals are a diverse group that includes 64
currently recognized species that are divided into six families that are united not
by their phylogeny but by an ability to glide. Species that glide descend through
the air, after launching, at an angle less than 45° to the horizontal, whereas those
that parachute descend at an angle greater than 45° (Rayner, 1981). There are
three families of gliding marsupials that live in Australia, New Guinea, and the
surrounding islands, including six species of lesser gliding possums of the family
Petauridae, one species of greater glider of the family Pseudocheiridae, and one
species of feathertail glider of the family Acrobatidae. The greatest diversity of
gliding mammals occurs in the rodents of the order Rodentia, in which they are
represented by the flying squirrels of the rodent family Sciuridae, comprising
some 51 genera and 278 species in total (Wilson and Reeder, 2005). Of these,
the flying squirrels comprise 15 genera and 48 species that live throughout Asia,
Europe, and North America. A second group of gliding rodents is the unrelated
scaly- tailed flying squirrels of the family Anomaluridae that live in central and
western Africa and include seven species (although one species does not glide).
Gliding reaches its most spectacular and efficient expression in the two species
of colugos, also known as flying lemurs, of the order Dermoptera that occur
throughout Southeast Asia.
The fossil record for the extinct taxa that have been recognized as gliders
is remarkably diverse but has not been united previously in any other taxonomic
review. This study tentatively recognizes 3 species of Petauroides of the
family Pseudocheiridae, 18 species from 13 genera and 4 families in the order
Dermoptera, 48 species from 20 genera in the family Sciuridae, and 7 species