Cute, furry and charismatic. What’s not to love about the unknown gliding possum of the Top End?

The vast tropical savannas of northern Australia contain a large variety of animals and plants, some of which are still undiscovered or unknown to modern science.

The Northern Savanna Glider (currently thought to be a sugar glider; Petaurus breviceps ariel) is the only glider known from northern Australia and is a species we know remarkably little about, despite its broad distribution. Earlier this year the ABC reported our discovery that this small marsupial glider is likely to be a species new to science, rather than just a northern population of the already well-known sugar glider. Detailed work to determine their taxonomic and conservation status is now urgently required.

With your support, we will officially describe this enigmatic and unidentified species. For this we must travel to museums and compare the savanna glider to other similar species so it can be officially described. This will involve taking morphology measurements and a tissue sample so we can compare these with samples we’ve been collecting throughout the Top End. We cannot describe the new species without comparing it to the very first specimen ever collected, so we need to get to the British Natural History Museum, where the original specimen found in 1842 is now stored. 

At the same time, we must conduct surveys across vast areas of the Northern Territory to help us understand how this unique species lives. We need to investigate where they are found, how big populations are, what sort of habitat they need, what they eat, when they breed, and how they respond to fire and other threats like predators. We will do this by trapping and radio-tracking gliders across their range. This information will be critical to conserve the species; the various gliders found in Australia have different ways of life, which determine what threats the gliders are sensitive to and so how they might be managed for conservation.



Without this basic information we cannot conserve the northern savanna glider. It would be a travesty if we lost this charismatic creature before we even knew what it was. With your support we can continue to describe and research this species so that we can conserve it into the future.

Your support will help us to officially describe the new species so we can get started on conserving this cute little critter! Funding will be used for costs associated with:
- travel to remote field locations across northern Australia ($150 per day)
- radio collars to track glider behaviour and document their ecology ($180 per collar)
- British Natural History Museum visit to view, measure and sample the original glider specimen collected in the Northern Territory in 1842 (~$5000)



Any surplus funding from this campaign will allow us to expand the project into areas of northern Australia that we are yet to explore, such as the iconic Kimberley region.

The project faces two main challenges that we will address throughout our research. Firstly, working with an unknown species can be difficult because we know so little about them. It is hard to find places to trap these small animals when we don't know much about the kinds of habitats they live in. We will overcome this obstacle by utilising the knowledge of traditional owners and historical observations. Secondly, our research will involve a lot of remote field work. Working remotely in the monsoonal tropics can be challenging but our team has extensive experience in this type of research and will be able to deal with obstacles if they arise.