Born ugly, locals call it "the most terrifying animal"

What ugly animals have you seen?

There is an animal that has earned the title of "the most terrifying animal" in the local area because of its strange appearance.

It has ferocious eyes and an alien-like appearance. If you encounter it at night, it feels like you will lose half your life.

It looks quite weird. Image source: wikimedia

Aye-aye baby

This animal lives in Madagascar. Due to hunting by explorers and locals, this ugly and scary animal is almost extinct... This animal is called the finger monkey, and its English name is "Aye-aye".

The long-fingered monkey that stumped the experts

The aye-aye is the only species in the genus Aye-aye of the family Aye-aye of the order Mammalia. Its most prominent feature is the special shape of its hands. For example, although the thumb is not as thick and short as a human hand, it is still the shortest of the five fingers and does not reach the level of the other fingers. Each monkey has a metacarpal bone about 1 cm long, also called a "false thumb", which is composed of a small bone and a piece of cartilage, which can help the owner to hold branches more firmly and grasp small objects more easily.

The most prominent third finger (middle finger) is much thinner than other fingers. Will such a thin and long middle finger affect the life of the aye-aye? The answer is no. First, it has a ball-and-socket joint that allows the knuckles to rotate in all directions (similar to the human shoulder joint), which is very convenient for movement; second, when exercising or sitting quietly, they can curl up their middle fingers to protect them, and they are also in a curled state when grasping and wrapping objects, so they are not easily injured.

In addition to wrapping around trees or food, the slender middle finger is also used to dig out insect larvae or eggs from tree holes or stone caves. When foraging, the aye-aye usually taps the tree trunk quickly with its fingers, then uses its ears to capture the echolocation signals emitted by the tapping, and quickly determines the holes or passages bitten by insects from the signals. After finding the target, it bites open the bark and uses its long middle finger to dig out the insects or eggs inside for consumption.

The aye-aye uses echolocation to find prey (food), which is similar to the way bats locate their target. Because they have similarities in appearance (especially the ears) and living habits (such as hiding during the day and moving at night), some people jokingly call the aye-aye a "wingless bat."

In addition to its fingers, the teeth of the aye-aye are also unusual. Primates generally have highly developed canine teeth, which are used for killing enemies, self-defense, digging objects, etc. But the aye-aye does not have canine teeth, but only incisors with cutting surfaces and tooth surfaces, which are convenient for cutting food. Their incisors grow every day, and are often worn down by cutting food, and over time they become pointed.

Because this feature is too obvious and its appearance is similar to that of a squirrel or mouse, scientists initially believed that the aye-aye was a rodent and classified it as a close relative of squirrels or mice.

Image source: biolib.cz

This situation lasted for nearly a century. In 1860, with the development of anatomy, biological taxonomists discovered that the aye-aye had the same finger and knuckle structure as primates (such as humans), but the length was different, so they classified the aye-aye into the order Primates and classified it as a close relative of lemurs based on its appearance, habits and other characteristics. To this day, some scientists have proposed to classify the aye-aye into the family Lemuridae.

Unwelcome "Forest Doctor"

As one of the latest discovered primates and rarest mammals in the world, the aye-aye was originally widely distributed in the coastal forests of southeastern Madagascar in Africa. Later, due to long-term hunting by local people, it became increasingly scarce and is now almost extinct. It is listed in Appendix I of the 2019 edition of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Image source: sciencedirect

There are two main reasons why finger monkeys have been hunted for a long time: one is that, as mentioned in the previous article, they have an ugly appearance and jump like ghosts when they appear at night; the other is that they like to climb the olive trees next to the cemetery and eat the nuts on them. The locals believe that the olive tree is a sacred tree that protects their ancestors, and anyone who violates the sacred tree should die.

All these factors made the locals extremely disgusted with the finger monkeys. Not only did they hunt and kill them mercilessly, they also nailed their bodies to wooden stakes and hung them upside down in the woods, hoping to drive away bad luck.

The near extinction of the aye-aye has also changed the ecological balance of the forests in Madagascar. Originally, the aye-aye was an omnivorous animal, eating larvae, fruits, seeds, mushrooms, etc. Relatively speaking, it prefers to eat insect larvae and eggs in bark or dead trees. They occupy the ecological niche of the local woodpeckers and are truly "forest doctors."

The number of aye-aye monkeys has dropped sharply, and there are no woodpeckers to catch insects, which has led to an increase in the number of sick trees. This is something that the locals who hunted the aye-aye monkeys did not expect. Fortunately, in recent years, the Madagascar government has realized this and not only attaches importance to the protection of aye-aye monkeys, listing them as national treasures, but also strengthens ecological protection and creates a suitable living environment for aye-aye monkeys.

Easily confused with the same

The finger monkey, named for its super-slender middle finger, is often confused with a very small pygmy marmoset. The pygmy marmoset, also known as the squirrel monkey or pygmy marmoset, is scientifically named Cebuella pygmaea. It is the smallest monkey in South America and is similar to a squirrel. It is often kept as a pet. Because they can lie on human fingers, they are also called finger monkeys.

Although both are "finger monkeys", there are huge differences between the two, which are mainly reflected in species, living areas, sizes, etc.: they both belong to the order Primates, but the finger monkey belongs to the family Aye-aye, and the pygmy marmoset belongs to the family Marmoset; the finger monkey lives in the jungles of Madagascar in Africa, while the pygmy marmoset mainly lives in the Amazon River basin in South America and other places; the adult finger monkey is up to forty to fifty centimeters long, and more than twenty centimeters long when young, while the adult pygmy marmoset is only a dozen centimeters long, and the two are very different in body shape.

The Japanese marmoset, also known as the "finger monkey", is from the Exploration Journal.

As primates, the aye-aye and the pygmy marmoset have many similarities. For example, they are both omnivores, not only collecting fruits from leaves, but also eating insect larvae and eggs. They both live in tropical rainforests. Their biggest similarity is that their numbers are continuously declining due to hunting and habitat destruction, and both are on the verge of extinction.

How to protect these two species that are easily confused with each other has become a major issue that people should pay attention to.

【References】

1.《UNEP-WCMC》. Retrieved 18 March 2015

2. "IUCN Red List of Threatened Species". Version 2014.1

3. "The Ghost of Madagascar - Aye-aye", Youth Science and Technology Expo: Comic Fans, April 2016

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