Malay glider
| Malay glider | ||||||||||||
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Malay glider ( Galeopterus variegatus ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Galeopterus | ||||||||||||
| Thomas , 1908 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Galeopterus variegatus | ||||||||||||
| ( Audebert , 1799) |
The Malay glider or Temminck glider ( Galeopterus variegatus , syn .: Cynocephalus variegatus ) is a mammal from the order of the giant glider (Dermoptera). They live in Southeast Asia and feed on plants. A special feature is their flight skin (patagium), with which they can glide far.
anatomy
The length of the head and torso of the Malay glider is 33–42 centimeters, the tail is 17–22 centimeters long. The "wingspan" is 70–120 centimeters, so the limbs are very long. The weight is 1–1.75 kilograms.
The dorsal fur of Malaysian gliders is brownish-gray and speckled with white, a good camouflage on the bark of trees. The ventral fur is lighter and not spotted. The top of the flight membrane is hairy and has a pattern similar to the dorsal fur, the ventral flight membrane is only very sparsely hairy.
The proportions of Malaysian gliders differ from those of a number of mammals. The eyes are very large (nocturnal activity), the ears are small. the head is very broad and the limbs very long. The dog-shaped head shape gave its genus its name ( cynocephalus = dog's head).
Occurrence
The Malay glider lives in Thailand , the Malay Peninsula and various islands of the Indonesian archipelago, including Sumatra , Java and Borneo , plus a number of smaller islands.
Malay gliders mainly live in the rainforests in hilly areas, but they are also regularly found in rubber, coconut and banana plantations.
Way of life
General
This species lives arboreal and never comes to the ground voluntarily. They are solitary animals, but occasionally several animals can be found on a tree. They use gliding to get from tree to tree without having to cross the ground. They usually fly 50-70 meters, the record was 136 meters. They are nocturnal and spend the day in their hiding place, on coconut plantations they often curl up like a ball between the palm fronds.
nutrition
The herbivorous Malay gliders eat flowers, leaves, buds and fruits, which they pull to their mouths with their hands and bite off. The necessary water absorption is ensured by the absorption of precipitation, the water-rich food and the consumption of wet leaves.
Reproduction and development
The gestation period of Malaysian gliders lasts 60 days, after which a young animal weighing 35 grams and an underdeveloped condition is born. There are seldom two young animals. These are recovered in the hind skin, which forms a pocket when the female slides. During sloth-like climbing and while sleeping, the mother animals serve as a living hammock for the young. The females are often pregnant before they have weaned their current young; in this way they compensate for the low number of young animals per litter.
Systematics
The Malay glider was placed together with the Philippines glider in the common genus Cynocephalus , but more recent publications and literature use the name Galopterus variegatus (first proposed by Oldfield Thomas 1908). The introduction of this genus is based on morphological differences, especially the dentition, which is made for harder food in the Malaysian glider than in its close relative.
Malay glider and humans
Since Malaysian gliders regularly live in plantations and feed on the plant cultures grown there, they are often hunted, which is quite easy due to the almost always the same routes of locomotion. However, they are also hunted for meat and fur. It is practically impossible to keep these animals in captivity.
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literature
- TS Kemp: The Origin & Evolution of Mammals . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005, ISBN 0-19-850761-5 .
- Erwin Kulzer: Dermoptera. Giant gliders, fluttering lemurs, colugos . In: W. Westheide and R. Rieger: Special Zoology. Part 2: vertebrates or skulls . Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Munich 2004, pp. 574-575, ISBN 3-8274-0307-3 .
- Kathy MacKinnon: giant glider . In: David W. Macdonald (ed.): The great encyclopedia of mammals . Könemann Verlag, Königswinter 2004, pp. 432–433, ISBN 3-8331-1006-6 (German translation of the original edition from 2001).
- Ronald M. Nowak: Walker's Mammals of the World . 2nd Edition. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1999, pp. 250-252, ISBN 0-8018-5789-9 .
- Thomas Schultze-Westrum: The giant gliders. In: Bernhard Grzimek et al. (Ed.): Grzimeks animal life . Vol. 11. Mammals 2 . Kindler Verlag, Zurich 1969, pp. 80–82.
- Don E. Wilson, DeeAnn M. Reeder (Eds.): Mammal Species of the World . 3. Edition. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2005, ISBN 0-8018-8221-4 .
- Erich Thenius and Richard Kraft: Riesengleiter in: Bernhard Grzimek (Ed.): Grzimeks Enzyklopädie, Volume 1: Mammals , pp. 634–639, Kindler 1988, ISBN 3-463-42101-1
Web links
- Malaysian Glider on Animal Diversity Web (Author: Eric J. Ellis)
- Galeopterus variegatus in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2006. Posted by: E. McCance, 1996. Retrieved on October 8 of 2006.
References and comments
- ↑ a b Don E. Wilson and Russell A. Mittermeier (Eds.): Handbook of the Mammals of the World. Volume 8: Insectivores, Sloths and Colugos. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona 2018, ISBN 978-84-16728-08-4 , pp. 284-285
- ↑ e.g. in Wilson & Reeder 2005