Lay your eyes on these tiny, adorable feathertail gliders
That's not a mouse, it is a rare and ridiculously cute glider. Prepare to fall in love, as five more of these little guys have just entered the world.
Sydney's Taronga Zoo greeted the feathertail glider joeys as part of a successful breeding program. Two older joeys are ready to leave the nest and have been snapped in some pretty special photographs by the zoo. Three more joeys are still hairless, blind and suckling with their mother, not quite ready to tackle the big world just yet.
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"We were the first zoo to ever breed these tiny marsupials so it's always exciting when we see joeys start to emerge," Rob Dockerill, the zoo's Australian fauna keeper, said in an emailed statement.
When born, feathertail gliders are only the size of half a grain of rice, spending 63 days in their mother's pouch, while mothers generally weigh only 15 grams (0.5 ounces).
The older joeys at the zoo are about 14 weeks old and will soon wander on their own alongside 30 other feathertail gliders at the zoo. While they get bigger and strong, they are spending time in communal nests and being looked after by the females in the group.
Although they have experienced brief fame as the star of Australia's now defunct one cent coin, little is actually known about the rarely-seen feathertail glider.
"When you're half the size of a mouse and swoop around after dark, not a lot of people pay attention to you, and if they do they're not necessarily going to guess the right thing. They are easily mistaken for a mouse," Dockerill said.
What is known though is that they are capable of gliding up to 25 metres, with a clever ability to run up vertical planes of glass -- a skill likely borrowed from their capability to run up smooth gum trees.
Mysterious and cute, a winning combination.
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Topics Animals
