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The aye-aye is a lemur, a primate that is native to Madagascar that not only has sharp rodent-like teeth that never stop growing but also a special thin middle finger used for probing for grubs to eat. Strange as they may look, they are really unique and very specialized critters. These incredible critters are listed as Endangered by the IUCN. This is due to habitat loss (at the hands of logging), trapping, and fire damage to the forests in which they live.

First the Stats...

Scientific name: Daubentonia madagascariensis
Weight: Up to 5 lbs.
Length: Up to 16 inches, plus a 24 inch tail
Lifespan: Up to 23 years

Now on to the Facts!

1.) The aye-aye is nocturnal (active at night)

2.) Aye-ayes are arboreal (They spend their lives in the trees)

3.) The diet of the aye-aye consists of insect larva, seeds, nectar, fruit, and fungi.

4.) With its specialized middle finger, it taps on the branches and trunks of trees and listens for movement inside with highly sensitive ears. If movement is detected, they will then use their sharp teeth and chew a hole in the area and use their finger to fish out the tasty grubs inside. This is called percussive foraging.

5.) Aye-ayes build multiple nests in the trees and often switch from nest to nest to help avoid predators.

But wait, there's more on the Aya-aye!

6.) Based on the climate, the aya-aye mates between October - February.

7.) The females are polyandrous (mating with more than 1 male in a cycle). She will call repeatedly to lure males (up to 6 at a time). She comes into estrus (heat) every 2 - 3 years and gives birth to 1 offspring.

Did you know...?
The aye-aye was thought to be a large species ofsquirrel when it was first discovered.

8.) From birth, the infant aye-ayes emit an "eeep" or a "creee" sound to maintain contact with its mother.

9.) When aye-ayes get excited or bothered, their long, white hairs stand on end and give them a poofy look. It's thought that they do this to appear larger and more threatening!

10.) Aya-ayes are typically solitary. Only coming together to mate.

Now a Short Aye-aye Video!

Also, check out the Critter Science YouTube channel. Videos added frequently!

Want to suggest a critter for me to write about? Let me know here.

Learn more about all kinds of cool critters, right here!

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The aye-aye is a lemur, a primate that is ative to Madagascar that ot o ly has sharp rode t-like teeth that ever stop growi g but also a special thi middle fi ger used for probi g for grubs to eat. Stra ge as they may look, they are really u ique a d very specialized critters.

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https://www.zooborns.com/zooborns/aye-aye/

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Crouching on a tree branch, a hairy animal that looks like a cross between a raccoon and a rat lifts a long finger and taps on the trunk. It’s not politely knocking to see who’s home. Instead it’s trying to locate hollow spots beneath the bark where insects live. (It can tell that it’s found a cavity by the sound of the tapping.) Once it detects a hollow, the animal rips away the bark with its teeth and gobbles up the bugs. This curious creature is known as an aye-aye. FREAKY FINGERS Aye-ayes can be found only in the forests of Madagascar, an island nation off the coast of Africa. The animals rarely descend from their treetop digs to the forest floor. Only active at night, they spend the day snoozing on branches in nests made of leaves. When darkness falls the creatures forage for food in the treetops. In addition to bugs, aye-ayes feast on fruit such as mango, scooping pulp from the juicy meal with their bony fingers. Without its distinct digits, snagging grub would be much harder for the aye-aye. And the animal’s fingers aren’t the only funny feature that helps it survive in the wild. Big, yellow eyes let it see in the dark. Giant, sensitive ears help the animal detect prey. And a long, bushy tail allows the aye-aye to balance as it scampers along tree branches. IT’S ALL RELATIVE The aye-aye’s odd traits may be useful to the animal. But they’ve also caused confusion. The animal’s rat-like teeth and squirrel-like tail led scientists to first assume that it was a rodent. But these animals are actually primates—the same group of species that humans belong to! With its weird looks and oddball behavior, the aye-aye is one relative with a serious range of strange. Text by Andrea Silen / NGS Staff

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https://www.zooborns.com/zooborns/aye-aye/

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Meet the aye-aye, the world’s weirdest primate

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Face of possum, tooth of mouse, ear of bat—it’s not a line from Macbeth, but it just might describe the world’s weirdest primate.

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BY Donna Parham

For naked mole-rats, it's one for all, and all for one. You won't see naked mole-rats in the deserts and dry savannas of eastern Africa, but they're there, scurrying-backward and forward-through elaborate burrow systems that can be 18 feet deep. Their location under the earth makes them challenging to study in their native habitat, and most of what we know about their surprising behavior comes from studies in managed care.

Like a hive of honeybees, a single naked mole-rat "queen" is the only reproductive female in the colony. She mates with 1 to 3 reproductive males, and bears a litter of up to 20 offspring, 5 or 6 times a year. All the other mole-rats in the colony are workers who keep their subterranean world humming along. That makes the naked mole-rat Heterocephalus glaber one of a handful of eusocial mammals. (The other is the Damaraland mole-rat Cryptomys damarensis of southern Africa.) The prefix "eu" in the term "eusocial" means, "good, true, genuine," and it is a clue that the behavior of these rodents goes beyond merely social. A naked mole-rat colony is more like an ant, honeybee, or termite colony than a group of small mammals.

Who's Who in a Mole-rat Colony

Amid the dozens (or sometimes hundreds) of naked mole-rats in a colony, the queen is the only reproductive female. Finding a mole-rat queen in the naked mole-rat habitat at the Zoo's Wildlife Explorers Basecamp is like a real-life game of Where's Waldo? (Challenging, but you will eventually spot her.) She's the largest naked mole-rat in the colony, and also the only one with visible, nub-like teats. You might find her patrolling the tunnels or possibly resting smack in the middle of a pile of squirming naked mole-rats. A few (usually just one to three) of the next-largest in the colony are reproductive males-the only ones that breed with the queen.

As for nonbreeding members of the colony, researchers have noted size-linked differences in behavior among them. Along with juveniles, the smallest adults do most of the work. "They gnaw through the earth to dig burrows, they look for roots and tubers underground, and they are constantly moving dirt," says Nicki Boyd, curator of applied behavior at the San Diego Zoo. She has been caring for naked mole-rats since 1992, when they first came to the Zoo. "When the queen's in the nest, nursing pups, they may take chunks of food to her." They also care for her offspring. They clean and carry neonates to the nest, where they groom them, nudge them, and keep them warm.

The largest nonreproductive adults don't work as much, but along with the reproductive males, they play an important role in defending the colony from snakes or from incursions of neighboring mole-rats. "Because of their thick necks, I call them the 'pit bulls' of the colony," says Nicki. And while most mole-rat workers are protected within the tunnel system, the largest mole-rats take on the risky role of kicking soil out onto the surface, a behavior called "volcanizing" because of the mound of earth that piles up outside of an opening.

Long Live the Queen

High levels of hormones in the queen's urine help her maintain reproductive dominance. "When the other females are exposed to that hormone, they don't even ovulate," says Nicki. It's typical for all of them-including the queen-to defecate and urinate in specific shared areas, called latrines, which are often dead-end tunnels. That means every naked mole-rat in the colony comes in contact with the queen's urine.

The queen asserts dominance behaviorally, too. "The queen doesn't just lie there-she patrols the area and keeps order in the colony," says Nicki. A queen shoves the others around, and she walks right on top of them when they pass in the tunnels. These behaviors play an important role in reproductive repression, and help the queen maintain dominance.

The death of a queen typically initiates what Nicki calls a "mole-rat war," as several females fight-often to the death-for the position. "They shove, push, and bite each other-kind of like rams butting heads," she says. With incisors sharp and strong enough to gnaw through concrete, puncture wounds are common, prompting studies that have found naked mole-rats don't feel pain the same way we do. "We monitor the wounds, but we have to let them work it out themselves as they would in their native habitat," says Nicki.

Over 30 years of caring for and learning about naked mole-rats, Nicki has also seen instances when the next-largest female has stepped into the role of queen with little violence. She's even seen two queens in a colony. "That was really strange, but maybe the queen's hormones weren't strong enough to keep a second female from ovulating," she postulates.

Once there is a new queen, what happens next is "really unheard of for a mammal," says Nicki. No matter how old the new queen is, her spine lengthens, and she grows. "Even if she's 10 or 15 years old-her vertebrae grow, so that she can accommodate large litters." Then, the new queen starts breeding with reproductive males. Agonistic interactions become rare, and social order is restored. Soon, workers will have a new litter of pups to care for.

At the Zoo, you can find these fascinating rodents in the McKinney Family Spineless Marvels Invertebrate building at Wildlife Explorers Basecamp. Although naked mole-rats are mammals (which, of course, do have internal skeletons, including vertebrae), "we thought it made a lot of sense to make the connection with the leafcutter ants and honeypot ants around the corner, and the bees upstairs," says Nicki. "They are a fossorial mammal that acts as an insect colony does. It's a fascinating story of biodiversity."

Cool Facts about Naked Mole-rats

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There's strength-and survival-in numbers, especially for naked mole-rats. Also known as the sand puppy, these burrowing rodents are a study in eusocial behavior.

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naked mole rat, (Heterocephalus glaber), burrowing member of the rodent family Bathyergidae, named for its wrinkled pinkish skin and hairless bodily appearance. Their broad heads contain strong, muscular jaws that support four incisor teeth that are used for digging. They are renowned for their long life spans, low cancer rates, and colonial habit. Contrary to what their name suggests, naked mole rats have about 100 fine hairs on their skin that function like whiskers to help them feel their surroundings.

Naked mole rats can be found underground in the grassy and semiarid regions of East Africa, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Djibouti. They inhabit subterranean burrows formed by an extensive network of tunnels that may range up to 2 metres (6.5 feet) deep and 4 km (2.5 miles) long. They create these tunnels, approximately 4 cm (1.5 inches) in diameter, by gnawing away dirt with their large teeth and sweeping it up to the surface in an assembly-line fashion. The tunnels connect chambers used for nesting, nursing, food storage, and other functions.

Natural history

Naked mole rats are typically 7.5 cm (3 inches) long and weigh approximately 28-42 grams (1-1.5 ounces), although their size can be larger depending on their role in the colony. Their bodies have developed several adaptations that allow them to live in subterranean habitats. They possess small eyes, which renders them practically blind. They do not have external ears, and their inner ears lack structures that allow for cochlear amplification (a process that boosts sound before it reaches the brain), which contributes to degenerated hearing. Naked mole rats rely on their other senses, particularly touch and smell, to navigate the tunnels. The fine hairs on their bodies function as whiskers to sense vibrations and air currents in the burrow, and their short legs allow them to easily navigate the tunnels. One-quarter of a naked mole rat's muscle mass is contained in the jaw, while nearly one-third of its brain's somatosensory cortex, the area associated with the sense of touch, is devoted to its teeth.

Naked mole rats are herbivorous, and they eat the parts of plants growing beneath the surface, such as roots and tubers. If a large tuber is found, naked mole rats may eat the interior and leave the outside mostly intact, allowing it to grow back and become a consistent food source. They do not dig for water to drink, as their diet provides sufficient moisture. Because digging for food is such an energy-intensive process, naked mole rats practice coprophagy: they reingest their feces in order to maximize the amount of nutrients absorbed from their food.

Naked mole rats are one of the only truly eusocial mammals-that is, they live in large colonies defined by a hierarchical social structure in which nearly all of the individuals cooperate to aid the relatively few individuals that reproduce. Colonies are led by a female naked mole rat called the queen, which is the only female that reproduces. The queen mates with a small number of males and produces litters up to four or five times yearly. Although the average size of a litter is approximately 12 pups, this number is quite variable and can reach as high as about 30 pups-one of the largest litter sizes for any mammal. The other naked mole rats in the colony function as either workers or soldiers. Workers are approximately 7.5 cm long and 35 grams (1.25 ounces) in weight; they dig tunnels, gather food, and care for pups. Soldiers, by contrast, use their comparatively larger size, approximately 55 grams (2 ounces) in weight, to protect the queen and the colony from snakes and other predators. The naked mole rat's eusocial nature also comes in handy with respect to thermoregulation; unlike many other mammals, naked mole rats are unable to maintain a stable body temperature and sometimes huddle together in large masses to conserve their body heat.

Naked mole rats can live exceptionally long lives, with life spans estimated from 10-30 years, far longer than other small rodents. Studies on naked mole rats have revealed that they defy the Gompertz law, a mathematical equation developed by British mathematician Benjamin Gompertz that posits that the risk of dying increases exponentially with age. While this risk of mortality doubles every eight years after age 30 in humans, a naked mole rat's chance of dying appears to stay constant for the entirety of its life. ( See also aging.) The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources has classified Heterocephalus glaber as a species of least concern.

Cancer resistance

Research has revealed that the source of these lengthy life spans may be the naked mole rat's lack of tumorigenesis, the formation of malignant tumours. Although a few cases of cancer have been reported in naked mole rats, their incidence of cancer is significantly lower compared with similarly sized animals as well as humans. The key to their cancer resistance may derive from the sugar molecule hyaluronan, which keeps cells from clumping together to form tumours. Hyaluronan molecules are present in all animals, but they are extremely large in naked mole rats (about five times larger than those found in mice, rats, and humans), and these supersized molecules are not broken down by enzymes as rapidly as they are in other animals.

Michael McDonough

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Naked mole rat | Burrow, Incisor, Facts, & Description

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Naked mole rat, (Heterocephalus glaber), burrowing member of the rodent family Bathyergidae, named for its wrinkled pinkish skin and hairless bodily appearance. Their broad heads contain strong, muscular jaws that support four incisor teeth that are used for digging. They are renowned for their

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Long, white tusks break the surface of the icy Arctic water. It's not a waterlogged herd of unicorns-it's a pod of narwhals! This species of whale is best known for its tusk-a long, spiraled tooth that usually only the males develop. (Females occasionally do.)

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Behold the Unicorn of the Sea, the Narwhal

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The narwhal is as strange as it is fascinating. With their long tusk that sticks out from the front of their head they roam the Arctic waters in search of food

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How large is a narwhal tusk? And 4 other narwhal facts

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Often dubbed the unicorns of the sea, narwhals are strange and beautiful creatures with long tusks protruding from their heads. Check out some common questions about these near-threatened whales.

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Why are they "naked"? Native to the desert regions of East Africa, which can be pretty warm during the day, naked mole-rats live underground. If it does get cold at night, the little mammals just huddle together in a mole-rat pile and use each other's body heat to keep warm.

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Animal Smackdown by National Geographic Kids on Epic Books

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Animal Smackdown by National Geographic Kids on Epic Books

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pages 68-71

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Instantly access over 40,000 of the best books & videos for kids on Epic

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Get unlimited access to 40,000 of the best books, audiobooks, videos, & more for kids 12 and under. Try it free.