Siberian flying squirrel

The Siberian flying squirrel, Pteromys volans, is an Old World flying squirrel whose range runs from the Baltic Sea across northern Asia to the Pacific coast. It is the only flying squirrel found in Europe, where it survives in the European Union only in Estonia and Finland and is regarded as vulnerable; it was last sighted in Latvia in 2001 and has been treated as locally extinct there since 2013. A female weighs about 150 grams and the body is 13 to 20 centimetres long with a flattened tail of 9 to 14 centimetres. The coat is grey, with a black stripe between neck and forelimb and strikingly large black eyes, and a furry glide membrane between the front and rear legs lets it glide from tree to tree over distances of more than a hundred metres. It eats leaves, seeds, cones, buds, nuts and berries, mates in early spring and usually bears two or three young. Habitat fragmentation and the loss of old spruce-dominated boreal forest drive its decline, and it is the emblem of Nuuksio National Park in Finland.