My last post, which was trying to expand your knowledge on
the animals we share this planet with was about foxes, and of course everyone
has heard of these and the majority of those 12 species populations are at
least stable which is great. Other animals however are not so lucky; the next
animal we’ll be looking into is called an Aye-Aye. It is the only remaining
Aye-Ayes have been on the IUCN Red List of Threatened
species since 2006 and is classed as endangered. It is a species of lemur and
so is endemic to the island of Madagascar which is found of the eastern coast
of Africa. The Aye-Aye is found in extremely low densities throughout the
islands eastern r
Although Aye Ayes are endangered their population numbers
have climbed and stabilized in the last few decades since they were believed to
have become extinct, they were rediscovered in 1957. This was because for many years the locals
believed that the Aye-Aye was a bad omen and was possessed by dark spirits and
so were hunted to near extinction. Also they were struggling as they are only
found in extremely low densities and so require large undamaged forests, which
were being destroyed as hardwood was being removed.
Apart from humans the Aye-Aye has few natural predators with
the only Fossa, a cat like nocturnal carnivore, being the only major threat to
a fully grown adult, while birds and snakes are able to predate on the more
vulnerable young.
The Aye-Aye is capable of breeding throughout the year and
the gestation period lasts for 5 months. Once born the young remain in the
nests for 7 months at which point it is weaned of its mother’s milk. It will
still remain with the mother however for the next year and a half till it
reaches 2 years old. The juvenile then sets of to establish their own territory,
which in the case of males can be 100 – 200ha but these territories are likely
to overlapped with other male territories.
The ring tail lemur is well known and can be seen throughout
the world in Zoo’s and private collections but the Aye-Aye isn’t and this is a
shame as it’s an amazing creature although some might say it isn’t as cute as
some of the other lemurs. It is however the largest nocturnal primate in the
world and are almost completely arboreal and so are rarely seen on the ground.
They spend their days in nest which are made in the forks of tree branches and
at night hunt for grubs which they are extremely well equipped to do.
The Aye-Aye possesses a specially modified digit, which is
elongated and extremely thin, to tap tree bark in search of wood-boring
grubs. They listen to the reverberations
from the tap to locate the burrows of these grubs and then use forward facing
canines to strip away the bark and wood and impale the grub on their versatile
digits. This method of foraging is known as percussive foraging and is almost
unique to the Aye-Aye with the only other species known to employ this method
being the striped possum. The remained of the An Aye-Ayes diet is made up of
fruit, nuts, seeds and fungi all of which they forage for during their night
time wandering which can be up to 4km a
night. This diet means that the Aye-Aye fills niche that in taken by
woodpeckers in other parts of the world in Madagascar as they are not found on
the island.
Thanks for reading
Check out these videos
and a non-related video
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