Madagascar · The animal
Aye-aye
The aye-aye
Madagascar's most distinctive endemic animal is the aye-aye, a nocturnal lemur.
So you've seen a lemur. You maybe don't know that Madagascar is the only place on earth they live in the wild.
Madagascar's wildlife developed in complete isolation — seriously, the history of this island is WILD, literally. Roughly 90% of everything that lives here lives nowhere else. They got marooned millions of years ago and just kept evolving into things that shouldn't quite work.
The aye-aye taps on tree bark to listen for grubs underneath, then hooks them out with a freakishly long, skeletal middle finger built for exactly that. Nothing else on the planet feeds like it. The animals here are bizarre and special and you need to see why nothing else looks like this.
By The Cardinal Atlas deskEvergreen entry · reviewed for accuracy
The species
- Common nameAye-aye
- ScientificDaubentonia madagascariensis
- IUCN statusEndangered
- EndemicYes — found nowhere else
- Where to seeEastern rainforests; reliably at Aye-Aye Island near Mananara
- Best seasonDry season, April–November (nocturnal — go on a night walk)
Fast facts
- World's largest nocturnal primate
- Uses 'percussive foraging' — taps up to 8 times a second
- The elongated middle finger has a ball-and-socket joint
Persecuted locally as an omen; choose guides and reserves that fund conservation, never wildlife handling.