Aye-aye
The Aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis) is a strepsirrhine
native to Madagascar that combines rodent-like teeth with a long,
thin middle finger to fill the same ecological niche as a
woodpecker. It is the world's largest nocturnal primate, and is
characterized by its unique method of finding food; it taps on
trees to find grubs, then gnaws holes in the wood and inserts
its elongated middle finger to pull the grubs out.
Daubentonia is the only genus in the family Daubentoniidae and
infraorder Chiromyiformes. The Aye-aye is the only extant member
of the genus (although it is currently an endangered species); a
second species (Daubentonia robusta) was exterminated over the
last few centuries.
