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Aye-ayes (Daubentonia madagascariensis) are native to Madagascar. No one knows precisely how many exist in the wild. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies the animals as endangered and estimates that more than half of their wild population has disappeared in the past three decades. As adults, aye-ayes are about the size of possums. They use their spindly fingers to tap on the bark of trees, aiming to spook wood-boring insects inside the tree so that they'll move. When the aye-ayes hear the telltale scuttle of a potential meal, the predators chew holes into the bark and fish...

The bizarre, wondrous creature known as the aye-aye is a rare resident of Madagascar, a nation with among the greatest biodiversity in the world. There are countless animals there that simply can't be found anywhere else on the planet. Unfortunately, a recent military coup overthrew Madagascar's government, and ever since, criminals have been plundering and butchering the country's wildlife at a disastrous rate. As for the aye-aye, which naturalist Stephen Fry says looks like someone tried to "turn a bat into a cat," but I think looks more like a teddy bear mixed with a mad scientist--it stands to be...