Here’s How an Absurd Primate Ended Up With Squirrel Teeth

The aye - aye is about as idiotic looking as a primate can get : beady yellow centre , squash racket - similar ear , and hired hand like horrible wanderer . But perhaps its most interesting feature is its teeth .

Over millions of years , species on Earth have develop seemingly unique adaptations that serve them survive in challenging environments . But sometimes , totally different specie that face similar pressures end up independently evolving the same features , a process known as convergent evolution . That ’s how a lemur - comparable prelate ended up with squirrel teeth , according to a new subject .

“ The aye - aye is a really unusual primate , ” bailiwick writer Phillip Cox from the University of York order Gizmodo . “ It lives in Madagascar with other lemurs , it lives in trees like lemurs . ” But it has an unusual dieting , eating grubs it find out in hole beneath the tree barque it gnaws off with its front tooth . That could be how it ended up looking so squirrelly .

The investigator compiled microCT scan of 46 mammal coinage , including aye - ayes and squirrels , either from theMorphosourceonline database or from specimens in museums . They put them into a estimator program that could extend a statistical analysis and compare the configuration of the aye - aye skulls to those of squirrels . They launch that the the two species ’ skull had more in common than would be expected by randomness alone , agree tothe paperrecently published in Biology Letters .

Those similarity existed in the shape of the animals ’ skull . Both squirrels and aye - ayes have continually grow , farseeing front tooth . The aye - ayes also have relatively longer beak compare to other hierarch , and brain casing similar in form to squirrel ’ .

The researchers thought the law of similarity could well be explained by the aye - aye ’s need to lend lots of force on its teeth . The aye - aye scraping bark off of tree diagram in parliamentary procedure to eat out the germ , while squirrels crack nuts . That ’s how convergent evolution works — standardized evolutionary pressure could lead to unrelated but similar - looking animals . But this is just a best guessing based on moulding , as we ca n’t be intimate for sealed why these traits evolved .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

Now , here ’s a television about the aye - aye :

[ Biology Letters ]

discipline : This article say the investigator analyzed 46 aye - aye species , when actually they analyzed 46 mintage of mammals . It ’s been correct in the text and the author regret the mistake .

William Duplessie