Indian giant flying squirrel

The Indian giant flying squirrel (Petaurista philippensis), also called the large brown flying squirrel or the common giant flying squirrel, is a rodent in the family Sciuridae that glides between trees on a skin membrane, the patagium, stretched between its front and hind legs. It occurs in mainland Southeast and South Asia and in southern and central China, and is native to China, India, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. It is a large species, with a head and body length of about 43 centimetres and a tail of 50 to 52 centimetres, and it has black to gray-brown grizzled fur and a pale pink nose. It lives in dry deciduous and evergreen forest, usually between 500 and 2,000 metres, and has also been recorded on plantations. It is nocturnal and arboreal, nesting in tree hollows, and it feeds mainly on fruit, especially Ficus racemosa, along with bark, resins, shoots, leaves and insects. Its taxonomy is complex, and several forms once lumped with it, such as the Formosan, Hainan and Yunnan giant flying squirrels, are now treated as separate species.