Rare glider saved by WIRES

WEIGHING in at half-a-gram and measuring just 4cm in length, a rare feathertail glider named Speck is lucky to be alive, thanks to wildlife conservationists.

Speck is an infant feathertail glider, the smallest in the species. Picture: Jay Cronan

MEET Speck.

Weighing in at just half-a-gram and measuring just 4cm in length, this rare feathertail glider is now 85 days old.

But he might not have made it this far if it wasn’t for WIRES carer Katy Stewart, of The Pocket.

She is so devoted to Speck that she feeds him every four hours.

And feeding an animal with a head the size of a fingernail is not easy.

“His mouth and tongue are so small that I have to wear magnifying glasses just to see if he is lapping his milk,” she said.

“I had to search the house high and low to find a receptacle small enough to put the milk in.

“He moves so fast I have to wrap his tiny head in a tissue and hold it in between my thumb and fore-finger while he drinks.”

The tiny treasure was found in a Yelgun garden.

Ms Stewart has been a WIRES carer for four years and has looked after many animals, including wallabies, sugar gliders, birds, water dragons, mountain brushtail possums, bandicoots, echidnas, frogs and ducks.

“All of them are beautiful in their own individual way,” she said.

“I now have in care the tiniest, cutest little animal of them all.”

When Ms Stewart first took Speck in he weighed only 0.004 of a gram and was less than 2cm long.

She thought he would die because they normally live in large family groups and become lonely on their own.

But Speck has thrived, and Ms Stewart will release him into the wild when he is big enough.

Rare Feathertail Glider found on Northern Rivers

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Originally published as Rare glider saved by WIRES