Witness the Horror of the Demon Primate

We all tend to think of monkeys and lemurs as pretty cute, right? I’d reckon that sentiment is generally well-reasoned.

But then there’s this: A small primate, known locally as a ‘demon,’ with haunting large eyes. It spends all night in the trees, tap-tapping away at the bark with its hideously shriveled middle finger like a sadistic killer rustling your screen door just before he strikes. According to legend, a single point from that evil finger is enough to strike you dead.

Meet the aye-aye, a bizarre little primate featured in a wonderfully-titled National Geographic series called World’s Weirdest: Freaks on Land. Aye-ayes, which are found only on Madagascar, may not actually be demons. But they do indeed have one hell of a frightening demon finger, which is used to search out insects burrowed in trees. They have huge, sensitive ears, and are thought to be the only primates to use echolocation. They’re also similar to sloths in that they rarely leave the trees, and the days sleeping away in nests of leaves.

So, yeah, despite being considered a bad omen to Madagascar natives, aye-ayes are wonderfully cute and weird. I just pray I’ll never hear one tapping outside my door.

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