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Red and White Giant Flying Squirrel
Petaurista alborufus
33.5222, 107.933
Spotting Video
Field Notes
Description:
The largest species of giant squirrel over 1m (3') from head to tail with piercing blue eyes!
Check out the short video clip of it gliding through the forest.
This species inhabits dense montane forest, limestone cliffs and conifer forests. They are nocturnal and nest in high tree hollows.
Habitat:
This species is found in China in the provinces of Shaanxi, Hunan (CSIS 2008), Guangxi, Sichuan, Gansu, Hubei, Guizhou, and Yunnan, and including Taiwan (Smith and Xie 2008). It occupies elevations ranging from 800-3,500 m asl, most often from 2,000-3,000 m.
This species inhabits dense montane forest, limestone cliffs and conifer forests. They are nocturnal and nest in high tree hollows.
Notes:
I spotted this is Foping Reserve. The trackers knew were to find them and we hiked to a valley with tall trees that they nested in. They are a nocturnal species and in order to see them during the day, the trackers would make a bit of noise on the tree to try and get the squirrel to come out and investigate. It worked! I was lucky enough to see 3 of them and even got to see them fly. I've added my footage of them flying. They were very hard to film as I never knew when the would fly. I was lucky enough to film them flying twice during midflight. I've combined my 3 videos into one with the first one played in slow motion as well to really get a good look at how they glide.
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