Suzanne Jenkins, age 13, of Portland, Ore., for her question:
Is there an opossum that can fly?
Our timid opossum feels safest above the ground where he clings to the branches with his paws and curly tail. He may envy the flying squirrel who glides from tree to tree with the greatest of ease. Little does he know that he has distant relatives who also can glide through the air.
The Algonquin Indians named the opossum, and the settlers of Australia borrowed the name to give to several of their native animals. The opossums who live on the other side of the globe are first cousins to the flying phalangers, and these furry acrobats glide through the air like our native flying squirrels. In fact, they are often called flying squirrels, which is a mistake. All the opossums and phalangers are in the order Marsupialia, and, of course; every marsupial spends his infancy in Mama's comfortable pouch.
The marsupials are divided into two suborders on the basis of their teeth. Our toothy opossum, who dines on meat and even carrion, is in the suborder Polyprotodonta, meaning many front teeth. His remote cousins are classified in Diprotodonta, and the animals in this suborder are i3mited to about two lower and six upper incisors. They dine mostly on plant food. The flying phalangers, then, are marsupial half cousins of our opossum.
The biggest of the phalangers is a 16 inch flying carpet, plus a 20 inch tail. The smallest is the pigmy glider, who is three inches long, plus three inches of furry tail. The average phalanger measures seven inches, plus eight inches of foxy tail. On each side he has a strip of fur covered skin which is attached to wrist and ankle.
When he launches himself from a tree top, he spreads out flat like a furry flying carpet and swoops through the air.
He twists and banks his little body and moves his tail to guide his direction. He brakes his speed by bending his supple back, and he lands right side up at the base of a tree perhaps i00 yards from where he started. He is a brownish gray animal, and his fluffy fur is as soft as feathery down. For this reason, he makes no noise as he plunges through the air on his nightly acrobatics.
The flying phalanger resembles the flying squirrel, though the two furry gliders are not related. The phalanger, being a marsupial, is a pouched animal. The babies, usually a pair of twins, are born in July. The busy creatures are nakfd and heiplfss. They are nursed and sheltered in their mother's fur lined pouch, and after two months the little charmers are clothed and ready to come out and see the world.