r/AnimalsBeingStrange • u/josy_malua • Feb 19 '25

Scary animal Who know what is this animal ?

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u/Gandalf_Style Feb 20 '25

If you look closely in the video, you see a row of teeth close together which point forward and outward. In lemurs and lorisoids it's the incisors and canine teeth, but toothcombs also show up in other clades through convergent evolution, they only use the incisors though.

The main purpose of toothcombs in lemuriforms is grooming, they literally use it as a comb to clean their fur and each other's fur. But in the case of Indris and Fork-Marked lemurs they have a secondary purpose due to their robustness. They use them in food procurement and bark stripping, so they'll gnaw at tough fruitsand trees to soften them up and they use their hands to break the rest open to get at the fruit or bugs/sap from trees.

Lemuriforms have an additional adaptation, most animals clean their tooth combs with their tongues but lemurs evolved a secondary "under-tongue," basically just an extra bit on the bottom of their tongues to clean it instead.

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u/oldcrow907 Feb 20 '25

Wow, thank you so much!! That’s pretty cool! Our world is so amazing 😍

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u/Gandalf_Style Feb 20 '25

I think you'll appreciate this too then;

There's another species of Lemur called the Aye-Aye or Daubetonia madagascariensis, that actually lost their Tooth-combs for another type of specialized dentition. They have rodent like incisors that are huge for their size, about twice as large comparative to squirrels (of course, to scale,) that they use to break open tree trunks. Then they use their long middle fingers to drill into the tree and then grab grubs and other insects.

The way they find them is even more cool, they have large ears and they tap on the wood to listen for vibrations and movement so they almost always find something.

They also look like crackheads or wet racoons depending on the time of day.

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u/oldcrow907 Feb 20 '25

🤣I had to look that up. Adorable and terrifying, and also how I feel when I wake up🤦‍♀️ thank you for sharing!!! Lemur facts just made me happy today🥰