Sugar gliders are found throughout the northern and eastern parts of mainland Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea and several associated isles, the Bismarck Archipelago, Louisiade Archipelago, and certain isles of Indonesia, Halmahera Islands of the North Moluccas. The earliest Australian sugar glider fossils were found in a cave in Victoria and are dated to 15,000 years ago, at the time of the Pleistocene epoch. The facilitated introduction of the sugar glider to Tasmania in 1835 is supported by the absence of skeletal remains in subfossil bone deposits and the lack of an Aboriginal Tasmanian name for the animal. In Australia, sugar glider distribution corresponds with forests along the southern, eastern and northern coastlines, and extends to altitudes of 2000 m in the eastern ranges.