Endangered
Aye-aye
Daubentonia madagascariensis
A second species, Daubentonia robusta, appears to have become extinct at some point within the last 1000 years, and is known from subfossil finds.
The primate
Published measurements include mass about 115.
Range and habitat
Its natural habitat is rainforest or dry deciduous forest, but many live in cultivated areas due to deforestation. Rainforest aye-ayes, the most common, dwell in canopy areas, and are usually sighted above 70 meters altitude. The aye-aye (, Aye-aye) is a long-fingered lemur, a strepsirrhine primate native to Madagascar with rodent-like teeth that perpetually grow and a special thin middle finger that they can use to catch grubs and larvae out of tree trunks.
In 1966, nine individuals were transported to Nosy Mangabe, an island near Maroantsetra off eastern Madagascar.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
The aye-aye is a nocturnal and arboreal animal meaning that it spends most of its life high in the trees. Although they are known to come down to the ground on occasion, aye-ayes sleep, eat, travel and mate in the trees and are most commonly found close to the canopy where there is plenty of cover from the dense foliage.
Aye-aye are solitary animals that mark their large home range with scent. Male aye-ayes tend to share their territories with other males and are even known to share the same nests (although not at the same time), and can seemingly tolerate each other until they hear the call of a female that is looking for a mate.
In crisis
It is currently classified as Endangered by the IUCN. A second species, Daubentonia robusta, appears to have become extinct at some point within the last 1000 years, and is known from subfossil finds. The aye-aye was thought to be extinct in 1933, but was rediscovered in 1957.
Recent research shows the aye-aye is more widespread than was previously thought, but its conservation status was changed to endangered in 2014. The forests of Madagascar are declining in range due to deforestation.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Aye-aye is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Aye-aye, Wikidata item Q186778. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
