Behavioural Evolution

The sugar glider behaviour towards human presence have changed after it have grown larger in size over a span of 1 month. Initially, the specimen will showed 3 obvious characteristics when anyone tries to approach it. Firstly, it would create noise which is known as “crabbing”. Secondly, it will shiver at one corner until left alone and lastly, it will excrete faeces when being grabbed or taken out from its cage. However, nowadays, when any stranger approaches the cage and opens the cage door, the sugar glider will hop out of the cage onto the hands of the person. When it does so, we will give it treats like fruits and sugar glider food and it will quickly grab it and jump back into its cage. The question now, is the sugar glider approaching us because it knows we provide food or is it just bonded with us. There was also an incident where we left some grapes in a plastic on the top of its cage and it chew throw the plastic and nibble on the grapes until it could drop into the hole of the cage. From this, we can see that the sugar glider have evolved smarter in the attempt of obtaining food.  On the 20^th May 2014, at around 2.47 am, I could hear a new behaviour which was shown by the sugar glider, it made not the usual sound but instead a hissing sound which we have never heard before. 

Eating Habits

This is a video depicting how a sugar glider scavanges for food in the wild. Unfortunately, due to the differences with its natural habitat, the food eaten by the glider was not found but given. It can be seen that the glider smells and examines the food before grabbing it from the owner's hand. This shows that every animal is cautious of their whereabouts no matter living in a jungle or in human presence. Besides that, the glider also tends to hang from the top of the cage in an inverted position similar to that of a sleeping bat. In the wild, sugar gliders perform this manoeuvre to be able to eat as well as keep a lookout for predators on the hunt.