Honeyeaters feeding on melitose (sap) from Eucalypt trees

[Lawrie Conole <>]

Alan Morris wrote:

Many mammals of course also feed on the sap and are the most likely animal who cuts the notch into the bark to make the sap flow, particluarly Yellow-bellied, Sugar and Squirrel Gliders.

Not wishing to be contradictory for the sake of it; I still feel a need to
comment further on this.

Many sap sites that birds feed from are natural wounds caused by physical
damage to the tree - others are at sites of insect attacks.  Yellow-bellied
Gliders make very uniform vee-shaped incisions - quite unmistakeable.

Of the gliders though, there is little convincing evidence for any other
than the Yellow-bellied Glider making serious incisions in eucalypts to deliberately
cause a sap flow.  I've often heard that Sugar and Squirrel Gliders deliberately
incise eucalypts in the same way, but can't say I've been convinced yet!
 I'm somewhat convinced that Sugar Gliders deliberately incise wattles (Acacia
mearnsii and A. pycnantha for example; in southern Victoria at
least).  Otherwise, Sugar and Squirrel (and Feathertail) Gliders are opportunistic
benefactors of the Yellow-bellied Gliders handiwork - just like the birds.

Mahogany Gliders in FNQ are known to deliberately incise grasstree (Xanthorrhoea
johnstonii) flower spike stems to cause a sap flow.  Spotting their paw
prints on the waxy grasstree flower spike stems is one way of detecting the
presence of this species.


-- 
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Lawrie Conole
Senior Ecologist
Ornithology & Terrestrial Ecology
 
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