page_title: Aye-aye
section_title: Diet and foraging
hierarchical_section_title: Aye-aye / Behaviour and lifestyle / Diet and foraging
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Spuren der Narungssuche eines Fingertiers, Aye-Aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis) an einem Ast. English: Limb gnawed by an aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis)
context_page_description: The 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.
  It is the world's largest nocturnal primate. It is characterized by its unusual method of finding food: it taps on trees to find grubs, then gnaws holes in the wood using its forward-slanting incisors to create a small hole in which it inserts its narrow middle finger to pull the grubs out. This foraging method is called percussive foraging, and takes up 5–41% of foraging time. The only other animal species known to find food in this way is the striped possum. From an ecological point of view, the aye-aye fills the niche of a woodpecker, as it is capable of penetrating wood to extract the invertebrates within.
  The aye-aye is the only extant member of the genus Daubentonia and family Daubentoniidae. It is currently classified as Endangered by the IUCN; and a second species, Daubentonia robusta, appears to have become extinct at some point within the last 1000 years.
context_section_description: The aye-aye is an omnivore and commonly eats seeds, fruits, nectar and fungi, but also insect larvae and honey.
  Aye-ayes tap on the trunks and branches of trees at a rate of up to eight times per second, and listen to the echo produced to find hollow chambers. Studies have suggested that the acoustic properties associated with the foraging cavity have no effect on excavation behavior. Once a chamber is found, they chew a hole into the wood and get grubs out of that hole with their highly adapted narrow and bony middle fingers. The aye-aye begins foraging between 30 minutes before and three hours after sunset. Up to 80% of the night is spent foraging in the canopy, separated by occasional rest periods. It climbs trees by making successive vertical leaps, much like a squirrel. Horizontal movement is more difficult, but the aye-aye rarely descends to jump to another tree, and can often travel up to 4 km (2.5 mi) a night.
  Though foraging is usually solitary, they occasionally forage in groups. Individual movements within the group are coordinated using both vocalisations and scent signals.
caption: Gnawed limb by an Aye-Aye to prey on larvae
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