Aye-aye – Endangered, Misunderstood and Remarkable!

Do your kids love animals that look a bit creepy?

Meet the scary-looking nocturnal lemur with freaking fingers. This unique primate has the face of a possum, the tooth of a mouse, and a bat’s ears. Its scientific name is Daubentonia Madagascariensis and the lemur is found in Madagascar. It is an endangered and misunderstood animal. Aye-ayes are a type of lemur and lemurs are one of the world’s most endangered animals. There is a legend that seeing an aye-aye is bad luck and if it points its long finger at you, death is not far away. This has meant that there has so far been little effort to protect this unique animal.

How did it get its name? There are several ideas from the animal’s peculiar cry, to Malagasy people crying out “aiee!-aiee!” in fright of the creepy-looking animal.

Aye-aye is the only primate which has ever-growing incisors. This means that the animal has strong and sharp teeth to gnaw through nuts and hard-shelled fruits. A third eyelid protects the eye from debris when the aye-aye is gnawing through wooden branches.

The aye-ayes witch-like fingers and toes are special. They all have pointed claws (their opposable big toes lack the claws). The middle finger on each hand is thinner than the rest of their fingers. The fingers carry out a range of motions since they have a ball-and-socket joint. The aye-ayes hunt for food using a special method called ‘percussive foraging’. They tap up to eight times on trees with their long middle finger and listen for wood-boring insect larvae moving under the bark. Just like bats, they use echolocation signals to detect movements and vibrations of insect larvae when they are moving within cavities in the tree trunk. Their big ears help them to capture sounds when they are tapping. This approach is similar to a woodpecker using his beak to find food. The long middle finger is used to dig the larvae out and to scope out the flesh of coconuts and other fruits.

A project about this remarkable although little creepy looking creature is perfect when you are learning about endangered animals or animals living in Africa. Of course, the spooky-looking fingers is perfect inspiration for Halloween!