In the rainforest, there are all kinds of mysteries and weirdness, which bring indescribable inner feelings to the adventurers who walk through it. Especially at night, you never know what will happen in front of you when you take another step.
In the rainforest of Madagascar, there is such a nocturnal creature that looks like a large rat, with a miserable white pointed face with large yellow eyes, glowing a creepy red glow in the dark, with a pink nose and rodent fangs, and a pair of large black ears on its head.
Their grayish-white skin is sparsely covered with black or dark brown filamentous hairs covered with a layer of white hair that helps them blend into the surrounding forest in the dark. Their black claws are long and pointed, and they sometimes jump on all fours, and they make a "grunting" sound in their mouths...
Would you be afraid if you encountered such a creature? Don't talk about us, even the Malagasy natives are full of fear of this animal. They are the tenacious finger monkeys that have been killed several times by the locals to be "considered extinct" and have reappeared.
The monkey represents "a sign of doom and death" in the eyes of the Malagasy people. It is said that in the past, if malagasy people found finger monkeys near the village, they would abandon the entire village.
What makes finger monkeys so frightening is not only their appearance, but also their habit of eating nuts on an olive tree around a local cemetery.
The Malagasy people believed that the olive trees that grew in the cemetery were a symbol of harvest and sacredness, so no one was allowed to destroy them, while the finger monkeys often gathered in the trees around the graves.
Some researchers believe that Aye-aye, another name for the monkey, is a transliteration of the Indigenous Malagasy word "heh heh" or "hey hey", the word means "I don't know" locally, which may reflect that the Malagasy people who found that the monkey was referred to either did not give the animal a name or were reluctant to say its name because they were taboo.
The finger monkey is one of the most unique animals on earth. It has highly developed and lifelong rodent-like incisors, which were defined as rodents in 1788 and classified by biologists as close relatives of squirrels and jerboas by the mid-19th century.
It was not until 1860, after anatomical verification by taxonomists, that it was finally recognized that the monkey was a primate, a close relative of the lemur. But to this day, finger monkeys are still classified by most people as a separate family of finger monkeys, and whether it is possible to become a member of the lemur family is still a mystery.
Some people once thought that the finger monkey is the smallest primate of humans, but in fact, it is not the smallest, and the pygmy marmoset with a body length of only about 15 centimeters is the smallest one. The adult body length of the finger monkey is about 40 cm, the tail length is about 60 cm, and the weight is about 2 kg.
Arboreal refers to the monkey as the largest known nocturnal primate, spending most of its life in tall trees. And finger monkeys are most commonly found near the canopy, where dense foliage provides ample shelter.
Finger monkeys build spherical nests on tall branches, made up of leaves, branches, and vines, and they rarely sleep in the same place for two consecutive nights, meaning they have many nests, and it is believed that up to 6 can be found on a single tree.
They usually sleep in their nests during the day and do not leave the nest after dark to find a partner or food. Finger monkeys are solitary animals that mark territory with smell, and female finger monkeys usually have smaller territories that overlap at least with those of two males. Finger monkeys usually feed on seeds, fruits, nectar, and fungi, but also eat insect larvae (mainly grubs) and honey.
The way finger monkeys catch insect larvae is very unique, they can use their slender fingers to strike tree trunks and branches at a speed of up to 8 times per second, and use their sensitive ears to capture the echolocation signals emitted by finger knocks, thus finding hollow passages caused by insect larvae living under the bark.
Once lemurs spot their prey, they use their sharp incisors to tear open the trunk to find the hollow passage, then stick in their long middle fingers and hook their claws to pull the prey out and eat it.
They also use this long finger to eat bird eggs and coconut flesh, and the finger monkey is believed to be the only primate that uses echo localization in search of food.
The unique "way of catching insects" of finger monkeys is related to their iconic fingers. Their extra-long, slender fingers are so long that their hands make up about 41 percent of the total forelimb length. The third finger of the finger monkey is much thinner than the other fingers and is used to strike the trunk, while the fourth finger (middle finger) is the longest, used to hook insect larvae and small beetles and pull them out of the passage.
The middle finger of the finger monkey is unique in the animal kingdom because it has a ball-and-socket joint (the most flexible joint that can rotate and rotate in all directions). The most typical is the shoulder joint of the human body). Lemurs also have a sixth finger, the false thumb, which assists the lemur in grasping things.
Some people may wonder, can the long and thin fingers of the finger monkey be convenient in daily life? In fact, in addition to obtaining food, their long fingers are the same as the long nails left by many people, which is very inconvenient. Any movement can cause potential damage to their fingers, so finger monkeys curl their fingers when they move, just to prevent damage to their fragile fingers.
Interestingly, as the only primate without canine teeth, the finger monkey has replaced the ecological niche of the woodpecker in the local area with its unique dietary habits, which has led to the presence of no woodpecker in the Malagasy finger monkey habitat. As such, they are veritable "forest doctors" in the local area.
Is it obviously too unfair to misunderstand that they are considered "a sign of doom and death" and lead to their endangerment today?