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Aye Aye Lemur At Night (Daubentonia madagascariensis)

Island Of Madagascar

Off The East Coast of Africa

Palmarium Reserve

 

One of my final aye-aye images. This one shows the endangered lemur photographed at night aided by a guide holding a spotlight.

 

The aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis) is a lemur, a strepsirrhine primate native to Madagascar that combines rodent-like teeth that perpetually grow and a special thin middle finger.

 

It is the world's largest nocturnal primate and is characterized by its unusual method of finding food; it taps on trees to find grubs, then gnaws holes in the wood using its forward slanting incisors to create a small hole in which it inserts its narrow middle finger to pull the grubs out.

 

From an ecological point of view the aye-aye fills the niche of a woodpecker, as it is capable of penetrating wood to extract the invertebrates within.

 

The aye-aye is the only extant member of the genus Daubentonia and family Daubentoniidae. It is currently classified as Endangered by the IUCN. The aye-aye is an arboreal animal meaning that it spends most of its life high in the trees. Aye-ayes sleep, eat, travel and mate in the trees and are most commonly found close to the canopy where there is plenty of cover from the dense foliage.

 

Aye-aye are solitary animals that mark their large home range with scent. The smaller territories of females often overlap those of at least a couple of males. Male aye-ayes tend to share their territories with other males and are even known to share the same nests (although not at the same time). – Wikipedia

 

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Uploaded on October 4, 2024
Taken on November 27, 2017