Published December 5, 2018.
Endora celebrates her 35th birthday with a special banana-and-raisin treat!
Endora’s enclosure mate, 33-year-old Ozma, celebrates too!
Happy birthday to our ancient aye-aye Endora, who just celebrated her 35th birthday! She and her enclosure mate, Ozma — who is a mere 33 years old! — celebrated by chowing down on frozen-banana-with-raisins birthday treats made by their caretaker Jodi. Endora is still going strong and has smashed records for the oldest captive aye-aye ever. (Ozma is the second oldest.) For those who might be alarmed by the flame on Ozma’s birthday candle, fear not: it’s merely a sweet potato slice fashioned to look like a flame by the clever Jodi. Endora had apparently already extinguished her “flame” by the time our photographer arrived!
Endora and Ozma arrived at the Lemur Center on the same date, 13 December 1991, and with 32 year old Poe (who arrived 30th December 1987), are the last of the DLC’s eight wild caught aye-ayes. All eight were captured in threatened, unprotected areas containing fragmented forests in diverse locations across Madagascar. Read more in David Haring’s article, “The DLC’s Founding Aye-aye Fathers (and Mothers).”
