Eww are they related to rats?

The sugar gliders while commonly mistaken for rodents are actually small marsupials, the same family as a Kangaroo or Wombat. The sugar glider is often mistaken for flying squirrels which are from the rodent family. This similarity is due to convergent evolution. Despite having similar traits such as having big eyes, white bellies and the ability to “glide”, the most fundamental difference between the two is the way they breed. While the baby of flying squirrels take a long time to develop within their mother’s body, the baby of a flying squirrel in contrast only spends a short period of time in the mother’s body but is kept in the mother’s pouch after birth where it grows through the nourishment of the mother’s milk.