Social Behavior
Mother and juvenile aye-aye sleeping in their nestbox. Click image for larger version.
Aye-ayes are nocturnal, solitary foragers who spend up to 80% of the night feeding and traveling through the forest canopy. The majority of their time is spent in the trees although traveling on the ground is reasonably common. Males have huge home ranges, between 100 and 200 ha, while the home ranges of females are much smaller, usually between 30 and 50ha. A male's territory may overlap with that of several different males, and although encounters between neighboring males are rare, they might be hostile. Female ranges do not overlap with those of other females, but they always overlap that of at least one male. Aye-ayes sleep in elaborate tree nests during the day, with different animals possibly using the same nest on different days. Wild aye-ayes spend most of their lives alone. The only social interactions occur during courtship and when an infant is dependent on its mother. During these interactions, females are considered to be dominant over males, giving them preferential access to food. (Female dominance in primates is unique to prosimians.) In captivity, however, a male/female pair and their single infant might coexist peacefully for years.