Monkey Mayhem (5 page)

Ring-tailed lemurs live along the south and south-western part of Madagascar.

They are easily recognised by their distinctive long black-and-white-ringed tails.

Along with tarsiers and lorises, lemurs belong to a subgroup of primates called ‘prosimians', meaning ‘pre-monkey'.

They can be found in a variety of forests such as rainforests, gallery, deciduous and spiny bush forests.

They are very social and live in troops, which are led by the dominant female lemur.

Their diet consists of fruit, leaves, flowers, other plant parts, the occasional insect and small vertebrates.

The aye-aye lives in eastern Madagascar and is the largest of the nocturnal primates.

It is equipped with a very long, very thin third finger that it is able to rotate 360 degrees, independently of the other, shorter fingers.

The aye-aye's strange appearance has given rise to many superstitions and beliefs among the people of Madagascar.

When hunting at night, the lemur moves along a branch, rapidly tapping the wood with its elongated fingers while listening intently. If it detects the hollow sound of a cavity deep within the tree and hears an insect larva moving inside, it starts to gnaw at the wood until it is able to insert its third finger to extract the grub.

During the day, aye-ayes sleep in nests made from twigs woven together and lined with shredded leaves.

The aye-aye faces extinction, due to a combination of habitat destruction and human persecution.