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Fun Facts
Did You Know?
Before launching, a flying squirrel bobs and rotates its head side to side, triangulating distance and angle — running spatial math in the dark before committing to a jump it can't take back. Then it leaps, throws all four limbs outward, and the patagium snaps taut. It glides at 30 to 40 degrees, steering by adjusting tension on either side of the membrane. Direction changes by loosening one armpit. That is the most accurate sentence about aerodynamics you'll read today, and the squirrel executes it at speed, in near-total darkness, while navigating a three-dimensional maze of branches it…
If This Animal Could Talk...
"Watch closely, respect my space, and let my habitat explain the rest of the story."
The Two-Ounce Rat-Adjacent Mammal That Glides 150 Feet in Total Darkness, Fluoresces Pink Under UV Light, and Has Been Living in Your Trees This Whole Time Without Telling You
The Southern Flying Squirrel looks like someone took a rat, gave it enormous Disney eyes, stapled a blanket to its armpits, and said "okay go." That’s the whole animal. It weighs two ounces. It fits in a coffee mug. Its tail is flat. Its eyes are so disproportionately large for its face that most people, the first time they see one, say "that can’t be real" and then look it up and find out they were wrong.
It glows pink under UV light. It communicates in frequencies you can barely hear. It caches 15,000 nuts a year, forgets some of them, and accidentally plants your oak trees. And in some North Louisiana forests, it outnumbers the Eastern Gray Squirrel — the one you see every single day, on every power line and in every bird feeder, the squirrel you’ve never once thought was mysterious or doing anything interesting.
The flying squirrel does all of this at midnight while you sleep. It has been doing it in your neighborhood since before you moved in. You have almost certainly never seen one. Not because they’re rare — they live in every parish in Louisiana and in some stands outnumber every other squirrel. Because you go to bed before they clock in, and they have no reason to adjust their schedule for you.
A Few More Facts
How they hunt and forage: And in some North Louisiana forests, it outnumbers the Eastern Gray Squirrel — the one you see every single day, on every power line and in every bird feeder, the squirrel you've never once thought was mysterious or doing anything interesting. It wants to eat hickory nuts at midnight and it has zero interest in your opinion about this arrangement. Flying squirrels eat nuts, seeds, fungi, insects, bird eggs, nestlings, and whatever else presents itself.
Live birth or eggs? yes
When young are born: See the detailed species sections below.
What Is the Southern Flying Squirrel Often Confused With?
Gray-brown on top, cream belly, flat tail, enormous dark eyes, and a loose membrane of skin called a patagium that runs from wrist to ankle on both sides, hanging like a tiny cape when the animal rests. When it extends all four limbs and jumps off a branch, the patagium snaps into a roughly square airfoil. That's the whole aircraft. Two ounces, a skin flap, and about 60 million years of refinement.The eyes deserve their own paragraph. Proportionally the largest eyes of any North American squirrel, built to pull maximum light out of near-darkness. On a two-ounce animal. They're the eyes of a creature that evolved specifically to look like it wants to be adopted — soft, round, enormous, taking up an unreasonable percentage of the face — except it doesn't want to be adopted. It wants to eat hickory nuts at midnight and it has zero interest in your opinion about this arrangement. If you do hold one (people do; they're docile in captivity), it will sit in your palm looking at you with those eyes and you will feel briefly like the support character in someone else's story.At night under a flashlight, those eyes produce close-set, enormous, bright eyeshine unlike anything else in a North Louisiana forest. Deer eyeshine runs wide and greenish. Raccoon eyeshine sits high and bright. Flying squirrel eyeshine looks like a cartoon character watching you from the dark — two large reflections, very close together, canopy level, staring back with the energy of someone who was here first and is waiting for you to acknowledge it. If you sweep a flashlight through a mature hardwood at night and something stares back at you from thirty feet up with that specific expression, that's a flying squirrel, and it has been up there for hours.Now the absurd part: Southern Flying Squirrels fluoresce pink under UV light. All three North American flying squirrel species do. A biologist at Northland College in Wisconsin discovered this in 2019 by accidentally sweeping a UV flashlight across a nest box during an unrelated survey. The squirrel inside glowed pink. Subsequent research confirmed every individual does it. Researchers still haven't explained why — the leading hypothesis involves signaling during twilight when UV light persists after visible light fades — but nobody has nailed it. The squirrel has presumably always known and sees no reason to walk anyone through it.
Drag the handle left and right to compare Southern Flying Squirrel side by side with the species it gets mistaken for most.
Open the visual comparison tool
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Accessibility
Accessibility
No special mobility needed. Flying squirrel observation works from a parked car, a porch chair, or a folding chair at the edge of a woodlot. Red flashlight, patience, look up. The eyeshine comes to you.For visitors who are blind or have low vision: the alarm chirp sits at the edge of audibility — audible in genuine quiet with no competing ambient noise. Landing sounds on bark carry at close range. The January nest box check operates on daylight terms: open it, register what's staring at you, close it carefully.
The information that they live in your trees is the whole point of the encounter, and it lands the same way regardless of how you receive it.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Does Southern Flying Squirrels live in North Louisiana?
Yes. And in some North Louisiana forests, it outnumbers the Eastern Gray Squirrel — the one you see every single day, on every power line and in every bird feeder, the squirrel you've never once thought was mysterious or doing anything interesting. At night under a flashlight, those eyes produce close-set, enormous, bright eyeshine unlike anything else in a North Louisiana forest
How do you identify Southern Flying Squirrels?
Gray-brown on top, cream belly, flat tail, enormous dark eyes, and a loose membrane of skin called a patagium that runs from wrist to ankle on both sides, hanging like a tiny cape when the animal rests. When it extends all four limbs and jumps off a branch, the patagium snaps into a roughly square airfoil. That's the whole aircraft. Two ounces, a skin flap, and about 60 million years of refinement.The eyes deserve their own paragraph. Proportionally the largest eyes of any North American squirrel, built to pull maximum light out of near-darkness. On a two-ounce animal. They're the eyes of a creature that evolved specifically to look like it wants to be adopted — soft, round, enormous, taking up an unreasonable percentage of the face — except it doesn't want to be adopted. It wants to eat hickory nuts at midnight and it has zero interest in your opinion about this arrangement. If you do hold one (people do; they're docile in captivity), it will sit in your palm looking at you with those eyes and you will feel briefly like the support character in someone else's story.At night under a flashlight, those eyes produce close-set, enormous, bright eyeshine unlike anything else in a North Louisiana forest. Deer eyeshine runs wide and greenish. Raccoon eyeshine sits high and bright. Flying squirrel eyeshine looks like a cartoon character watching you from the dark — two large reflections, very close together, canopy level, staring back with the energy of someone who was here first and is waiting for you to acknowledge it. If you sweep a flashlight through a mature hardwood at night and something stares back at you from thirty feet up with that specific expression, that's a flying squirrel, and it has been up there for hours.Now the absurd part: Southern Flying Squirrels fluoresce pink under UV light. All three North American flying squirrel species do. A biologist at Northland College in Wisconsin discovered this in 2019 by accidentally sweeping a UV flashlight across a nest box during an unrelated survey. The squirrel inside glowed pink. Subsequent research confirmed every individual does it. Researchers still haven't explained why — the leading hypothesis involves signaling during twilight when UV light persists after visible light fades — but nobody has nailed it. The squirrel has presumably always known and sees no reason to walk anyone through it.
What does Southern Flying Squirrels eat?
And in some North Louisiana forests, it outnumbers the Eastern Gray Squirrel — the one you see every single day, on every power line and in every bird feeder, the squirrel you've never once thought was mysterious or doing anything interesting. It wants to eat hickory nuts at midnight and it has zero interest in your opinion about this arrangement. Flying squirrels eat nuts, seeds, fungi, insects, bird eggs, nestlings, and whatever else presents itself.
Is Southern Flying Squirrels dangerous to people?
Direct danger is low, but flies associated with waste or carrion can carry microbes. Avoid handling them and keep food, wounds, and living spaces sanitary
