Not that there haven't been challenges. For one thing, the curious, constantly active animals have proven far more destructive to their concrete block wall enclosures. Tapping away at the hollow cinderblocks, the creatures apparently believe they may harbor insects, and gnaw holes in the walls that must be covered with stainless steel sheeting. Also, since the animals are foragers, they prefer to work for their board.
"Their natural foraging technique is to dig things out to eat, so they're basically uninterested in food if it's just presented to them in a bowl," said Williams.
Thus, the technicians put the basic aye-aye diet, a gruel of monkey chow flavored with vanilla, into a hollow bamboo tube or other container so that the aye-aye has to fish it out to eat. As an occasional treat, the technicians also fetch from Duke Forest a rotten log that the animals can tear apart looking for grubs.
"These feeding methods are not directly a medical problem, but it's something you have to do to ensure the overall well-being of the animal," said Williams.
The Primate Center has developed its aye-aye diet and feeding techniques as a result of some difficult lessons learned from the young aye-aye Goblin, born in 1994.
"He was being fed a chow with all the vitamins he would need, but he wasn't eating enough because of the presentation," said Williams. "So, he developed a bone disease that would be the same as rickets in humans."
After consulting a zoo nutritionist, the Primate Center staff determined
that the aye-aye diet was still low in some vitamins and minerals. For one
thing, the animals weren't being challenged to forage, wh
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Contact: Dennis Meredith
Dennis@dukenews.duke.edu
(919) 681-8054
Duke University
8-Jul-1998