Krefft's Glider

Fascinating facts about the Krefft's Glider

• A Krefft's glider can launch itself from a tree 30 metres high and glide 50 metres through the air without flapping — that's the length of two Olympic swimming pools crossed while falling. Loose skin stretched between its limbs acts as a parachute; mid-glide, it angles its tail like a rudder to steer toward the next trunk, touching down just metres from where it aimed. This isn't floating — it's controlled descent that burns almost no energy compared to climbing back down.
• At just 90 to 130 grams, a Krefft's glider weighs less than a deck of cards, yet it feeds like a tiny vampire: it bites through tree bark to tap the sap beneath, returning to the same wounds night after night to lap the nutrient-rich flow. Other gliders follow these sap trees by scent, creating a hidden map of feeding stations across the forest canopy that the colony relies on through winter.
• Krefft's gliders are among Australia's noisiest nocturnal animals — they bark, chirp, and make spine-tingling shrieking calls that bounce through the darkness. These aren't random; each sound signals location, alarm, or social status within their colony of up to 10 individuals. Researchers mapping forests at night often hear them before spotting a single one.
• Unlike most gliding mammals that are solitary hunters, Krefft's gliders live in permanent family groups and share a single nest — a hollow tree where siblings, parents, and offspring curl together through winter nights. This communal living is rare in marsupials; the shared body heat allows them to survive on less food during cold months, a survival strategy that demands coordination and cooperation.
• The fossil record shows Krefft's gliders have remained virtually unchanged for at least 10 million years, their gliding anatomy so finely tuned that evolution hasn't needed to reinvent it. They survived the extinction of Australia's megafauna, climate swings, and forest fires — yet today they depend almost entirely on old-growth eucalypt hollows that take 120+ years to form, making them unexpectedly fragile in a landscape being cleared faster than trees can age.

At a glance

About the Krefft's Glider

In the moonlit forests of eastern Australia, a tiny, iridescent form flits through the trees, its large eyes shining like lanterns in the dark. The Krefft's Glider, a small but remarkable marsupial, navigates its nocturnal world with effortless ease, its membrane-like patagium stretching from wrist to ankle as it launches into soaring, 50-metre glides through the night air. With a gentle whoosh, it alights upon a branch, its soft fur glistening in the faint light, a fleeting glimpse of a creature that embodies the magic and mystery of the Australian wilderness.

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