The Mysterious Abductions, the first book in Tracey Hecht’s new middle grade series The Nocturnals, is on-sale today. She stopped by the blog to talk about pangolins While writing The Nocturnals, it was really important to me to use the physiologies of the animals and their unique characteristics to inform and develop the characters and enhance the plot and story dynamic. The details I learned about the nocturnal world are constantly inspiring and engaging me. Here are some interesting facts I learned about sugar gliders while researching Bismark. **Sugar gliders are very small with their heads and bodies usually measuring about 12-32cm. They are born weighing less than a gram. Despite their size, they are very energetic and full of personality. (http://animaldiversity.org/) **Sugar gliders are marsupials and are born at a very early stage of development, weighing only a single gram. They continue to grow within their mother’s pouch until maturity and are completely self sufficient in 7-8 weeks. Sugar gliders seek comfort in small dark spaces even into maturity so pet owners often have pouches for them to hide in. (Macdonald, David W. “Marsupials.” The Princeton Encyclopedia of Mammals. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2009. 44-45. Print.) **In the wild, sugar…