Come on locals. Stop with the hunting. The only precautions you have to take are not to feed them after midnight, and never, ever get them wet.
Photo source: SF Gate
Jan 16, 2008
Bad Omen
Kat sent me this article of an aye aye that was born in a zoo in Bristol, UK. This is a very rare occurrence, and is a happy event. These little lemurs have been hunted to near extinction on their native Madagascar. It seems the locals on that island see them as a bad omen.
Come on locals. Stop with the hunting. The only precautions you have to take are not to feed them after midnight, and never, ever get them wet.
Photo source: SF Gate
Come on locals. Stop with the hunting. The only precautions you have to take are not to feed them after midnight, and never, ever get them wet.
Photo source: SF Gate
Why do I now have the "You Got To Move It Move It" song in my head?
ReplyDeleteI think it's a bad omen that people who kill things because they think they're bad luck.
ReplyDeleteSeriously...this world is full of some stupid people. How in the world could this lemur cause you bad luck?
That is the cutest thing EVER!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, this belongs on Cute Overload!
ReplyDeleteSeems to me the humans are "bad luck" for all living wild creatures.
ReplyDeletePoor under appreciated precious little souls.
send it to co!!! lets send up a chant, people!
ReplyDeleteAye Aye!! These guys are awesome. They are highly intelligent, the largest of the strepsirrhines, and the mammal equivalent of a woodpecker. Their top two front incisors are fused together, as are their bottom two, to allow them to chew through wood like a rodent. They travel through the trees, locating bug larvae by sound: they possess a very long, thin middle finger that they tap the tree branches with; when they find a hollow area (grub located!) they chew through to the cavity in the wood and use their elongated fingers to pull out the food.
ReplyDeleteThey are seen by the locals as an omen of death, and killed on sight; this, added to their natural fearlessness of humans plus habitat destruction, has made them almost extinct.
Here's an excerpt from a book by Gary Duvall, called "The Aye-Aye and I":
"Then, to my alarm, it discovered my ear. 'Here' is seemed to say to itself, 'must lurk a beetle larva of royal proportions and of the utmost succulence.' It fondled my ear as a gourmet fondles a menu and then, with great care, it inserted its thin fingers. I resigned myself to deafness -- move over, Beethoven, I said to myself, here I come. To my astonishment, I could hardly feel the finger as it searched my ear like a radar probe for hidden delicacies. Finding my ear bereft of tasty and fragrant grubs, it uttered another faint 'humph' of annoyance and climbed up into the branches again."
--Veronique
Wow, thanks Veronique. That is some fascinating information.
ReplyDeleteI would let this little guy dig in my ear any time!! He is the cutest.
ReplyDelete