The Aye-Aye, Spooky Tapping Lemur
Real animals that sound made up. Every claim in these episodes is checked against published science or museum sources.
The story
(15) This spooky little lemur taps on trees with one skinny finger to find its dinner. (20) Meet the aye-aye of Madagascar: huge ears, shaggy fur, a bushy tail, and the title of world's largest nocturnal primate. (21) At night it taps along branches with a long, skinny middle finger, listening with those big ears for hollow tunnels inside.
(21) Hear one? It gnaws a hole with front teeth that never stop growing, then hooks the grub out with that finger. (15) Scientists even found a tiny extra thumb, a sixth finger, with its own fingerprint. (22) Beliefs about it vary across Madagascar. In many villages, it's feared as bad luck. In some, it's honored as an ancestor's spirit.
(21) What really happened? It's an endangered lemur hunting grubs, not a monster. And hey, some of us still dodge black cats.
Sources
- lemur.duke.edu/discover/meet-the-lemurs/aye-aye/
- lemur.duke.edu/engage/virtual-programs/subscription/10-2020-ll2/
- wildlifemadagascar.org/animals/aye-aye/
- science.sandiegozoo.org/species/aye-aye
- brookes.ac.uk/about-brookes/news/news-from-2025/10/embodied-ancestor-or-harbinge
- smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/extra-thumb-discovered-aye-aye-lemurs-giving-t
- news.ncsu.edu/2019/10/aye-aye-extra-finger/
- pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31633197/