Philippine Tarsier

This freaky looking, crazed little critter is one of the smallest primates known to man. They usually average about 3 to 6 inches in height and would easily fit in the palm of your hand. Actually, by what I've read in the past, they are typically considered the 2nd smallest primate in the world. However, it must be a very close second place because the primate that gets credit for being the smallest in the world is not that much different in size, which is the Pygmy Marmoset.

Regardless of how bizarre they look, its size makes it somewhat hard to spot. The Philippine Tarsier's eyes are fixed in its skull, which means that their eyes can't turn in their sockets. However, its head can rotate 180 degrees to make up for their fixed eyes. For a mammal, their eyes are extremely large when compared to the rest of their body. Yes, they are nocturnal. I mean, com'on, can you blame them? I would wait for it to get dark, too, if I looked like that... LOL! Speaking of that, they have exceptional night vision.

The freaky features don't stop here, either, as their ears are also weird and they seem to be moving all the time, for some reason or another. Some of their major enemies are humans, owls, and feral cats. On the other hand, they mainly just eat insects like cockroaches and crickets, along with tiny lizards and helpless spiders, for example. Well, I just thought I'd share these little interesting tidbits with the blogging community here... Uh, yeah, this is your nature & wildlife lesson for today... Ha!

Update: In recent years, the Philippine Tarsier was named a specially protected faunal species by the government and designated as "near threatened" by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The main reason for this is: hunting, habitat loss, and unfortunate capture for the pet trade.  Yep, it sounds like humans are their worst enemy after all. Who in the hell would hunt these? Anyway, they typically do not survive captivity, going by what I've read, and their populations are slowly decreasing.  As for population, the last number I heard was 2,500 of them left and they have an average lifespan of 12 to 20 years. Hopefully the population number I came across is really higher than that, as that would definitely represent a threatened species and whatnot. ---End of Update

Image Credit: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Tarsier

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