Squirrels jumping and gliding

Nature Talk
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I was looking for pictures of squirrels jumping through the air to see what they do with their body while “gliding” and how consistently they stretch out their tail to act like a sort of wing. Is this something they always do, is their tail more used for steering like in monkeys? Unfortunately with tags and description I couldn’t really find much except these two observations, one of them clearly showing this use of the tail and one being a little more unclear.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/44320065

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/330748341

If any of you guys know of other observations on iNat that fit this description, I’d be grateful to see them. You can also use this thread to share other places on the internet that have images or videos of this kind of thing in squirrels.

I have also created an observation field for this kind of thing. The field is not restricted to squirrels, you can add it to any animal that is gliding through the air or jumping considerable distance from a high vantage point. I have decided to make it a combined thing for jumping and gliding, as the boundary is too fuzzy and it’s not that hard to differentiate these two cases by taxon (e.g. squirrel → jumping, colugo → gliding). Please don’t use this field for species that are capable or powered flights (i.e. most insects, birds and bats), there are other ways of marking those, like this project: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/birds-in-flight .

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Did you know we have flying squirrels here, that do actually glide like a colugo, using large flaps of skin stretched between their legs? Unfortunately all that extra skin makes them clumsy on the ground, so they are threatened by habitat fragmentation. They are super cute little things, with big shiny eyes and extra soft fur.

You’re project sounds interesting. I think you will find that squirrels always jump with their tails outstretched behind them. Not just to steer with, but also to reduce wind drag, and make sure that whatever drag there is is behind them, where it helps them stay on a straight course (like a dart with a tuft on it for stability.) I think if they tried to leap with their tail wrapped up over their back, for example, they wouldn’t be aerodynamic enough to get far, and would plop to the ground.