Western woolly flying squirrel

The western woolly flying squirrel (Eupetaurus cinereus) is a very large flying squirrel of the family Sciuridae, native to northern Pakistan and northwestern India. It was long treated as the only species in its genus, Eupetaurus, until two further species were described in 2021. For about seventy years after its first description in 1888 it was thought to be extinct, and it was rediscovered in 1994 by Peter Zahler of the Wildlife Conservation Society; before that, scientific knowledge of it rested on eleven skins collected in the late nineteenth century. Adults have a head-and-body length of 42 to 60 centimetres and weigh 1.4 to 2.5 kilograms, which makes it one of the largest gliding animals known, and its long, thick, grizzled fur gives the woolly look behind its name. It prefers high-elevation conifer forest with cliffs and caves, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature considers it Endangered.