A scary little creature

Meet the Aye Aye, one of world's weirdest mammals. It lives in Madagascar on the brink of extinction. It is unlike any other animal in the world with rodent like teeth, bat like ears and a huge finger.

Certain tribes in Madagascar are very frightened of this nocturnal lemur and believe it brings bring bad luck, so they'll kill it immediatly, unfortunately.

I have ripped this clip myself from a DVD, i thought it be interesting to share with those interested in weird & scary wildlife.

www.youtube.com...

There's a longer version here, skip to 1:19

p.s. I'm going to Madagascar myself for the third time in a row, in november this year, where i will visit the only place in the wild where the Aye Aye can be ecountered.

[edit on 16-8-2006 by errorist]

[edit on 16-8-2006 by errorist]

How could anyone consider this creature a harbinger of bad luck? /sarcasm



They get a little cuter as they grow up, but that finger...

: shudder :

In all seriousness, they're pretty amazing. Great example of adaptation...

you call that thing cute?! im not suprised its almost extinct. any humans who sae that thing in the night or day time probably got so freaked out they just killed it!

Originally posted by WyrdeOne
They get a little cuter as they grow up, but that finger...

: shudder :

Interesting enough they knock on trees to find hollow parts where the insects are (much like a woodpecker) and then pulls the grub out with this long finger...

Some of the locals believe that should one (aye aye) point its long middle finger at you, you were condemned to death.

The Saklava people go so far as to claim Aye-ayes sneak into their houses through the thatched roofs and kill the sleeping occupants by using their middle finger to puncture the victim's aorta.

When an Aye Aye is killed (by a superstitious person), the finger is removed and given to his/her enemy...

great photo. Good find!

haha looks like the evil gremlins from gremlins 2 (you know the one that comes out the bin)

The aye aye is perhaps the most primative of primates living today, lower on the primate family tree than the lemur. It has a flat thumbnail, like other primates, but claws on the rest of its digits. The aye aye has a thin elongated middle finger with a hooked claw. It uses this finger to scoop the flesh from coconuts, and other fruits.

Yes. I've known about aye ayes for many years now.

Originally posted by worksoftplayhard
you call that thing cute?! im not suprised its almost extinct. any humans who sae that thing in the night or day time probably got so freaked out they just killed it!

aww it looks cute Poor little things are almost dead, what a shame. The finger is pretty wicked though.

Don't be nasty to it, its soo cute

How can you say this is scary?

No wonder the world is in the current state of affairs. Anything that we do not understand or view as undesirable, we just kill.

Originally posted by Paresthesia


How can you say this is scary?

well...

Wow! Not sure if it is scary but certainly ugly!!! nice pics

Originally posted by errorist

Originally posted by Paresthesia


How can you say this is scary?

well...

Mommy. ;~;

OMG! -squee- Gotta love them. They are SOOOOOOOO friggin cute. . .
I think someone's gonna kill me now.

Is anything being done to prevent them being killed over a superstition? Funny, kind of like humans some are really ugly and some are kind of cute.

[edit on 26-2-2007 by RomanianDacianHun]

damn those things rock! Id rather have one of those than some giant guard dog. Imagine someone breaking into your house and seeing that THING clawing the wall and staring back!?! LOL i love it, wonder what my cat would do to it though... or worse..what it would do to my cat.

OMG are these things cute, i take back the scary comments. I want one of these!!

check out this video of a aye aye

What an amazing video! That thing was such a punnumwiddlefurry *incomprehensible baby talk*

Is it just me, or does the Aye Aye in that vid look as though it has a decent bit of intelligence in it? It seems to really examine its surroundings..... then make me laugh when it looks like and acts like a baby. A furry, big eared baby.

And that finger trick they do is amazing. They just tap and listen, then bite through the wood and scoop out larva and grubs with their middle claw which is shaped like a hook.
And they tap FAST, man!

as an aside, the adaptations of the aye-aye also appear in an arboreal dino-bird, the epidendrosaurus (epi- above dendro-branches, the lizard above and amoung the branches):


(this is from the [ur=http://www.luisrey.ndtilda.co.uk]Luis V. Rey[/url] website. The red and blue one is epidendrosaurus (the other is microraptor).


en.wikipedia.org...