Animals

• It is the world's largest nocturnal primate.
• They tap 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.
• The aye-aye is a near threatened species not only because its habitat is being destroyed, but also due to native superstition. Besides being a general nuisance in villages, ancient Malagasy legend said the Aye-aye was a symbol of death.

It is dark in color with two layers of hair: longer, coarse black hair with white tips and shorter and softer off-white hair. The face of the aye-aye is pale in color with dark ring&s around the eyes and black ears. It is a medium-sized nocturnal lemur weighing about 3 kg (6.6 lb).

The Aye Aye has very large eyes on it's pointed face, a pink nose and rodent-like teeth with incisors that grow continuously to ensure that they never become blunt. Their large rounded ears are incredibly sensitive giving the Aye Aye excellent hearing when listening for grubs beneath the tree bark and are able to be rotated independently. The Aye Aye has long and bony fingers with sharp pointed claws on the ends to help when dangling from branches, but it is the middle fingers on their front feet which are their most distinctive feature. Much longer than the others, these fingers are opposable with a double-jointed tip and a hooked claw on the end and are used for both detecting grubs in dead wood and then extracting them.

The aye-aye lives primarily on the east coast of Madagascar. Its natural habitat is rainforest or deciduous forest, but many live in cultivated areas due to deforesting. Rainforest aye-ayes, the most common, dwell in canopy areas, and are usually sighted upwards of 700 meters altitude. They sleep during the day in nests built in the forks of trees.

The aye-aye commonly eats animal matter, nuts, insect larvae, fruits, nectar, seeds, and fungi, classifying it as an omnivore. Aye-ayes are particularly fond of cerambycid beetles.

Aye-ayes tap on the trunks and branches of the trees they visit up to eight times per second, and listen to the echo produced to find hollow chambers inside. Once a chamber is found, they chew a hole into the wood and get grubs out of that hole with their narrow and bony middle fingers.

The aye-aye begins foraging anywhere between 30 minutes before and three hours after sunset. Up to 80% of the night is spent foraging in the canopy, separated by occasional rest periods. Though foraging is mostly solitary, they will occasionally forage in groups. Individual movements within the group are coordinated using both sound (vocalisations) and scent signals.

The aye-aye was thought to be extinct in 1933, but was rediscovered in 1957. Recent research shows the aye-aye is more widespread than was previously thought, but is still categorized as Near Threatened.

You can see the Aye-Ayes in the Aye-Aye Forest in the Primate Discovery Center. Tours are given. Please see signs in front of the exhibit for tour hours.