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🐿️ NATURE · Japan explained · 2026-09-16

Musasabi: Japan's giant flying squirrel that glides over 100 metres between trees at night

Same news, rewritten for 6 Japanese school grades — pick your level below. Furigana + translation included.
162 chars · ~3 min · 19 kanji
🐿️ NATURE 夜 よる
Same sentence · 6 levels

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ムササビは 日本にほんだけに すむ 動物どうぶつです。

昼ひるは 木きの あなで ねむり、夜よるに なると 外そとへ 出でます。

日ひが しずんで 三十分さんじゅっぷん ほどで 顔かおを 出だします。

前足まえあしと 後うしろ足あしの あいだに、うすい 皮かわが あります。

高たかい 木きから とび出だして、五十ごじゅうメートルほど 進すすみます。

百ひゃくメートル とんだ ことも あり、「空そらを とぶ ざぶとん」と よばれます。

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Translation

The musasabi is an animal that lives only in Japan.

By day it sleeps in a hole in a tree, and at night it goes outside.

About thirty minutes after the sun goes down, it pokes its face out.

Between its front legs and its hind legs there is a thin skin.

It launches from a high tree and travels about fifty metres.

It has flown a hundred metres, so it is called "the cushion that flies in the sky".

Can a musasabi actually fly?

The musasabi, or Japanese giant flying squirrel, lives only in Japan — in the forests of Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, and very often in the tall old trees of shrine and temple groves right inside towns. An adult is roughly 40 cm long with a tail of about the same length again, and weighs around one kilogram. That makes it far larger than the momonga, Japan's other flying squirrel, which fits in the palm of a hand.

It is strictly nocturnal. The animal sleeps by day in a hole in a tree trunk and usually pokes its head out about thirty minutes after sunset, then spends the night eating leaves, buds, bark, seeds and fruit. Between its front and hind legs stretches a thin sheet of skin called the hi-maku. When the musasabi spreads all four limbs, that membrane opens out into a flat square — which is exactly why its Japanese nickname is "the flying cushion".

A musasabi cannot flap, so it does not fly: it glides. It launches from a high branch, trades height for distance, and covers a typical 20 to 50 metres, with records of well over 100 metres. Its long flat tail works as a rudder and a brake, letting it steer around branches, land on a trunk, and climb back up before the next glide.

This article comes in six versions, one for each elementary-school kanji grade, with furigana and full Vietnamese and English translations, so you can read real Japanese at your own level.

What is the difference between a musasabi and a momonga?

Both are gliding squirrels native to Japan, but the size gap is large. A musasabi is about 40 cm long with a similar-length tail and weighs around one kilogram, while the Japanese dwarf flying squirrel, the momonga, is roughly the size of a hand and weighs under 200 grams. The musasabi lives mainly in lowland and hill forests, including shrine and temple groves in towns, and is the one people most often spot gliding between big trees after dark.

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Why six school grades, and not N5–N1?

Because that is how Japanese children learn to read. Japan's Ministry of Education fixes exactly which character belongs to which grade — so "grade 3" is a boundary you can verify, not a feeling. Every article here is machine-checked: if a single character sits above its grade, it is not published.

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