Aye-aye (scientific name: Daubentonia madagascariensis): Named for the long fingers and toes (specialty of the middle finger). The body is like a big mouse, with a body length of 36-44 cm, a tail length of 50-60 cm, and a weight of 2 kg; the body hair is thick and long, dark brown to black; the tail is longer than the body, and the tail hair is fluffy, shaped like a broom, and the hair is 10 cm long. Black or gray; slender body; large head and blunt snout; large, membranous ears; except the thumb and big toe, which are flat nails, other fingers and toes have sharp claws; the tooth structure is like a mouse, only 20; the limbs are short and the legs longer than the arm.

Aye-aye

A large, tropical rainforest Build spherical nests in tree cavities or branches on branches or trunks. Live alone or in pairs, nocturnal. Eating insects. When feeding, the middle finger is often used to tap the bark to determine whether there is a cavity, and then listen closely to the ear. Because of its shrill and cry-like sound, the local people believed that the aye-aye would bring bad luck, so they would kill it once they saw it. Coupled with the destruction of the habitat, the aye-aye became extremely rare and was once thought to be extinct. Distributed in the coastal forests of eastern Madagascar.

Chinese name: Aye-aye

Latin name: Daubentonia madagascariensis

Kingdom: Animalia

Door: Vertebrate

Subphylum: Vertebrate Subphylum

Class: Mammalia

Order: Primates

Family: Aye-aye

Genus: Aye-aye

Species: Aye-aye

Name and date: Gmelin, 1788

English name: Aye-aye

morphological characteristics

Aye-aye has a body length of 30-38 cm, a tail length of 44-51 cm, and a weight of 2-3 kg; the head is large and flat, with a face like a fox , protruding snout, blunt snout, a pair of black ears large and active, the ears are very large and membranous; the body is slender; the limbs are short, and the legs are longer than the arms. Except for the thumb and big toe, which are flat nails, the other fingers and toes have sharp claws; the black-brown body hair is composed of short soft down hairs and thick and long guard hairs, and the muzzle and the lower part of the body are gray-white. The face and belly are white, and the neck hair has a white tip; the tail is longer than the body, and the tail hair is fluffy and thick, shaped like a broom, and the hair is up to 10 cm long, black or gray.

The aye-aye is good at night, with a pair of staring orange-yellow eyes, a big head and a small mouth, a cat-like body, ears like a bat, teeth and claws like squirrel, and hands like human hands , they tap trees with their hands to determine the presence of borers. It gets this name because of its peculiar fingers. Its middle and ring fingers are as thin as wire, which is not only easy to pick up the grubs in the bark, but also can use thin fingers to pick out the pulp after biting through the shell.

Another unusual feature of the aye-aye is the teeth, the aye-aye has only 20 teeth, and does not have the unique comb teeth of primitive monkeys, and is the only primate without canine teeth; the aye-aye The incisors are highly developed and grow for life, with enamel tooth surfaces and sharp cutting surfaces, and it was because of this feature that it was misclassified as rodents for many years.