In addition to searching for food, aye-ayes also use their long middle fingers to extract mucus from the back of their throats through their noses. (Image: torstenvelden/Getty Images)
This lemur, native to Madagascar, is an unusual combination of several animals. It has round, owl-like eyes, bat-like ears, rodent-like teeth that grow continuously, and a long, bushy tail that is longer than its body.
The aye-aye is the largest nocturnal lemur in the world, weighing in at around 1.8 kg (4.1 lb) and measuring 60 cm (2.4 ft) from nose to tail. Young aye-ayes have silvery foreparts and a stripe down their backs, but as they grow, their thick fur turns yellow-brown with white tips. They rest in spherical nests of leaves and twigs during the day, and explore the treetops at night in search of food.
Aye-ayes have very long, thin middle fingers. When moving through tree branches at night, these creatures rapidly tap the tree with their long fingers, listening for subtle changes in the echo that indicate the presence of cavities where wood-boring insect larvae are hiding. When an aye-aye finds a larva, it chews a small hole in the bark and then inserts a thin finger to extract the prey. These long fingers have ball-and-socket joints, allowing the lemurs a wide range of motion, making it easier to access food.
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Sourse: www.livescience.com
