why-animals-do-the-thing: The day after I visited the Duke Lemur...
why-animals-do-the-thing: The day after I visited the Duke Lemur Center, the wonderful keeper who showed me around posted this great video of the Aye-ayes. Aye-ayes are nocturnal animals, so they’re kept on a flipped light cycle at the Center (it lets staff clean while the lights are on early in the morning, but then observe / work with the animals during the day when it’s dark in their enclosures). The girls happened to be awake before the lights went off when this video was taken. I wanted to share this video because it’s a great view of some of the adaptations that make Aye-ayes so special: their specialized “tapping finger” and super-sensitive ears. Here’s the great commentary from the DLC’s youtube channel: “Because a significant percentage of an aye-aye’s diet consists of insect larvae that dwell inside dead or living trees, the animals have evolved a specialized method for locating the larvae. As they walk along a branch, the animals continuously and rapidly tap it with their middle finger. Cupping their huge ears forward, the aye-aye listens intently to the echoing sounds coming from the tapped tree. When the sound indicates they are above an insect tunnel, the animals begin to tear off enormous chunks of the outer bark with their impressive teeth, until the insect tunnel is revealed. Then the aye-aye inserts its slender and highly flexible third finger into the hole, and when the prey is located, it is hooked with the tip of the finger and removed. Here, Ardrey and her daughter Elphaba use the same process to eat eggs from their technician, Mel: they tap, chew, then use their long flexible middle fingers to dip into and remove the yolks of the eggs :) When they finish, the delicate eggshells remain fully intact, except for the small hole created by the aye-ayes’ strong front teeth! I asked what the Aye-ayes were echo-locating to find in the egg, assuming it would be the air-sac, but it turns out an intern at the DLC studied them to find out, and they’re not looking for anything specific - they’re just tapping it because that’s what they instinctively do with food before they eat it.
vigna
The day after I visited the Duke Lemur Center, the wonderful keeper who showed me around posted this great video of the Aye-ayes.
Aye-ayes are nocturnal animals, so they’re kept on a flipped light cycle at the Center (it lets staff clean while the lights are on early in the morning, but then observe / work with the animals during the day when it’s dark in their enclosures). The girls happened to be awake before the lights went off when this video was taken.
I wanted to share this video because it’s a great view of some of the adaptations that make Aye-ayes so special: their specialized “tapping finger” and super-sensitive ears. Here’s the great commentary from the DLC’s youtube channel:
“Because a significant percentage of an aye-aye’s diet consists of insect larvae that dwell inside dead or living trees, the animals have evolved a specialized method for locating the larvae. As they walk along a branch, the animals continuously and rapidly tap it with their middle finger. Cupping their huge ears forward, the aye-aye listens intently to the echoing sounds coming from the tapped tree. When the sound indicates they are above an insect tunnel, the animals begin to tear off enormous chunks of the outer bark with their impressive teeth, until the insect tunnel is revealed. Then the aye-aye inserts its slender and highly flexible third finger into the hole, and when the prey is located, it is hooked with the tip of the finger and removed. Here, Ardrey and her daughter Elphaba use the same process to eat eggs from their technician, Mel: they tap, chew, then use their long flexible middle fingers to dip into and remove the yolks of the eggs :) When they finish, the delicate eggshells remain fully intact, except for the small hole created by the aye-ayes’ strong front teeth!
I asked what the Aye-ayes were echo-locating to find in the egg, assuming it would be the air-sac, but it turns out an intern at the DLC studied them to find out, and they’re not looking for anything specific - they’re just tapping it because that’s what they instinctively do with food before they eat it.
