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The aye-aye (''Daubentonia madagascariensis'') is a lemur, a strepsirrhine primate native to Madagascar that combines rodent-like teeth that perpetually grow and a special thin middle finger. It is the world's largest nocturnal〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Aye-Aye Daubentonia madagascariensis )〕 primate, and 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'' which 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. == Etymology == The genus ''Daubentonia'' was named after the French naturalist Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton by his student, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, in 1795. Initially Geoffroy considering using the Greek name, ''Scolecophagus'' ("worm-eater") in reference to its eating habits, but he decided against it because he was uncertain about the aye-aye's habits and whether other related species might eventually be discovered. In 1863, British zoologist John Edward Gray coined the family name Daubentoniidae. The French naturalist, Pierre Sonnerat was the first to use the vernacular name, "aye-aye", in 1782 when he described and illustrated the lemur, though it was also called the "long-fingered lemur" by English zoologist George Shaw in 1800—a name that did not stick. According to Sonnerat, the name "aye-aye" was a "''cri d'exclamation & d'étonnement''" (cry of exclamation and astonishment). However, American paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall noted in 1982 that the name resembles the Malagasy name "hai hai" or "hay hay", which is used around the island. According to Dunkel ''et al.'' in 2012, the widespread use of the Malagasy name indicates that the name could not have come from Sonnerat. Another hypothesis proposed by Simons and Meyers in 2001 is that it derives from "''heh heh''", which is Malagasy for "I don't know". If correct, then the name might have originated from Malagasy people saying "''heh heh''" to avoid saying the name of a feared, magical animal. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Aye-aye」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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