Moonbeam is a Japanese dwarf flying squirrel. She lives in the mountain forests of Japan, and nowhere else on Earth. She wakes shortly after sunset.
Moonbeam does not fly. She leaps from a cedar, spreads her legs wide, and a furry cape of skin between them catches the night air.
Her kind is listed Least Concern by the IUCN. She cannot make her own home, so she needs old trees with hollows already in them.
Moonbeam does not fly. She leaps from a cedar, spreads her legs wide, and a furry cape of skin between them catches the night air. It carries her to the next tall tree. She is about as long as a grown-up's hand, and she lives in Japan and nowhere else on Earth.
Moonbeam is a Japanese dwarf flying squirrel. She lives in the mountain forests of Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, in Japan, and nowhere else on Earth. Her head and body are 14 to 20 centimeters (5.5 to 8 inches) long, about as long as a grown-up's hand. She weighs about 100 to 170 grams (3.5 to 6 ounces), about as much as a small apple. Her coat is smoky grey-brown with a white belly. Her eyes are very big and round, made for the dark. Her tail is flat and furry, about two-thirds as long as her body.
The power is the cape. A fold of furry skin runs along each side of her body, from wrist to ankle. When she leaps and spreads her legs, the skin catches the air, and she glides from tree to tree. She wakes shortly after sunset and rests in a tree hollow by day. Her bed is often cedar bark, split into fine strips. She eats buds, leaves, seeds and cones, and from winter to early spring her droppings show she eats cedar pollen. She does not sleep through winter. She keeps coming out into the cold night.
4 of 43 pages, a peek inside
A mystery hunt about the momonga. Mariana and Fenekie have hidden the clues, and your young explorer gets to find them. Leave your email and we will send the book to print at home.
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Twenty-one painted scenes follow Moonbeam through a cedar wood in the mountains of Japan. A squirrel as long as a grown-up's hand looks out of a round, dark door. A cape of soft fur. A flat dark tail. A leap into the night. And one morning, the door is gone. Where will she go when the frost comes? For curious explorers, ages 4-8.
Find it on AmazonWe are still painting Moonbeam the Cedar Kite's stickers, shirts and prints. The rest of the club is already in the shop.
Her close cousin, the Ezo flying squirrel of Hokkaido, was measured in one study gliding as far as 49 meters (162 feet). Nobody has measured how far Moonbeam's own kind can glide.
She does not sleep through winter. She keeps coming out at night in the cold, and sometimes several squirrels share one nest. Scientists are still finding out why. Keeping warm is one idea, and so far the studies do not agree.
Her bed is often cedar bark, split into fine strips. She cannot dig or carve her own home, so she needs a hollow that is already there, in an old tree.
In its first days, a newborn weighs only about 5 to 7 grams (0.2 to 0.25 ounces). That is about the weight of one or two coins.
Moonbeam's kind is listed Least Concern by the IUCN, the group that tracks how animals are doing worldwide. It was last checked in 2016, and it has been Least Concern at every review since 2008. That means it is not on the danger list for the whole world. Nobody has counted well enough to know if there are more or fewer each year. In many parts of Japan, people worry about it. She needs old hollow trees, and she cannot make one herself. Where big areas of forest are cleared, her home can go too, and thinning often takes the hollow trees away. In Tottori, people hung nest boxes at three heights. The squirrels used the box 6 meters (20 feet) up almost every time. In Kumamoto, ten nest boxes and three cameras gave the first sure record of the squirrel in one northern area. We can love the old trees she sleeps in, and the boxes careful hands hang for her. 1% of all Fenekie Explorer Club sales supports wildlife conservation.
