Sugar gliders are opportunistic omnivores, consuming both plant and animal matter. They have a sweet tooth for acacia gum, eucalyptus sap and flower nectar.

They also eat lizards and small birds. This dietary choice has led to their being listed as an endangered species in Tasmania. https://sugarglider.website/

In Nature

Can Sugar Glider Eat Fish?

If you’ve ever walked through a forest or seen these cute little marsupials, you may wonder what their diet is like in nature. As nocturnal creatures, sugar gliders find food in the forests by hunting insects and small vertebrates that aren’t moving quickly.

Their eyes, ears and claws are specialized to locate food in the wild. They use their great night vision to locate prey in the dark and can even hear them when they’re out of sight, allowing them to ambush them.

As omnivores, they also eat plant matter such as sap and gum from trees. This is an important part of their diet as it helps them survive during dry periods in the Australian bush, when they don’t have enough moisture to hydrate themselves.

Sugar gliders will also strip the bark off acacia trees or open up bore holes with their teeth in order to extract sap and gum from plants. This is an energy-consuming process, and they usually wait until the insect season is over or the flowering is complete to feed.

When a predator is sighted, sugar gliders leap from tree to tree to avoid being killed. In addition, they’ll produce a white oily secretion from their paracloacal glands which has the odor of soured fruit to help discourage a predator.

In Captivity

Sugar gliders are nocturnal mammals that hunt for food in the night. They use their great hearing and vision to locate insects and other small animals, which they ambush using their gliding membranes and tails.

During their hunting, they can travel as far as a kilometer from their nest. They use their rudder-like tails to guide themselves in the air and land gracefully with their feet splayed to grab trees.

They are highly social creatures that live in groups of up to 7 adult members and their offspring. They often huddle together or enter short periods of torpor during cold weather.

To keep them happy, provide them with a cage large enough for each of them to move around and climb. The cage should also have a safe running wheel and plenty of branches for climbing and exploring.

It is important to provide your sugar glider with a healthy diet, which includes a mix of commercial pelleted sugar glider diets, live insects, and fruit and vegetables (not more than 10% of the diet overall). A calcium deficiency is common in captive gliders; this usually occurs when their diets are too high in phosphorus and should be corrected by adding calcium supplements.

It is also important to regularly give your sugar glider routine wellness check-ups, like with other companion animals. These checks can catch parasites and diseases early, before they have the chance to become life-threatening.

Advantages

Sugar gliders are pint-sized, nocturnal mammals that make excellent pets due to their "superpower" of gliding. They leap and glide from tree to tree in search of food, often using their twin skin membranes to gather their prey.

In the wild, these gliders catch their food by catching insects and small vertebrates. Fatty pigs are not an ideal food for them, so it's important to keep their diet lean and to provide them with adequate calcium.

A diet consisting of about 3 parts vegetables for each part protein works best. Diary products such as yogurt, cottage cheese, and eggs will also provide your sugar glider with calcium, which it cannot get from its diet alone.

Because of their innate sensitivity to phosphorus and oxalates, calcium deficiency is a common problem among captive sugar gliders. Changing the diet to cut down on phosphorus and adding more calcium should solve this issue.

Keeping your glider hydrated is also important, especially during a hot summer day. You can provide them with a water bottle, small water dish, or a combination of these. They acquire most of their water from their food, so providing your glider with a good source of fresh water is vital to their health and survival.