Red and white giant flying squirrel

The red and white giant flying squirrel, Petaurista alborufus, is a large rodent of the family Sciuridae with dark rufous-red, buff and white colouring. It lives in forests at altitudes of about 800 to 3,500 metres in mainland China and 1,200 to 3,750 metres in Taiwan, though the Taiwanese population is distinctive and may be better treated as a separate species, the Taiwan giant flying squirrel. Head and body length is 35 to 58 centimetres, with a tail of 43 to 61.5 centimetres. It sleeps in a tree hollow by day and forages in the trees at night, eating mainly nuts and fruit but also leaves, insects and their larvae, and it glides between trees on a membrane called the patagium, exceptionally as far as 400 metres. The International Union for Conservation of Nature rates it as least concern.