Megan Aylward is a thirty-two year old woman who received her PhD in anthropology from the University of Calgary in September of 2017. Megan was born in Brighton, in the United Kingdom and lived there until she was nineteen years old. Unlike the other two informants, Megan’s parents were not university educated. Rather, both are trained with specialized skills. Her father is an operating assistant and her mother is a midwife. Megan did not follow in her parents’ footsteps. As an undergraduate, she attended Newcastle University and majored in applied biology. Four years later, she began pursuing her PhD in anthropology at the University of Calgary. In her free time, Megan enjoys cross country skiing on the Rocky Mountains, practicing Jiu Jitsu, swimming, gardening and reading books.

Megan Aylward had the unique opportunity to volunteer on the west coast of Madagascar for 9 months through the Madagascar Biodiversity Partnership. The trip was organized to learn more about lemur population density across the Island. Specifically, Megan worked to sample the genetics of different aye-aye populations across the island. Since aye-ayes are so rare in the wild, her team developed a method to extract DNA from the wood that aye-ayes tore through with their rodent-like incisors. This methodology takes advantage of the distinct feeding traces aye-ayes leave on trees while they are foraging for food. Unlike our other informants, Megan was able to see aye-ayes in the wild. One night, she saw two aye-ayes feeding from a tree and walking on a trail in the forest.

This excursion allowed Megan to directly interact with local Malagasy peoples. She specifically worked alongside local guides affiliated with the NGO. Interestingly, those locals did not believe aye-ayes were fady. They had ten plus years of experience working with lemur species and had cultivated a professional approach towards aye-ayes. Aye-ayes were simply viewed as another lemur they researched for their job. It should be noted, however, that when they saw the aye-ayes with Megan, this was the first time the guides had ever seen the primate. She has found that the folklore is transmitted orally in casual, conversational contexts as well as through literature, which is not, strictly speaking, folklore. Specifically, Megan read articles by socio-cultural anthropologists and heard anecdotes about the folklore from colleagues also studying the unique lemur. Therefore, a majority of Megan’s knowledge about aye-aye folklore has come from a scholarly perspective.

Megan’s Pages:

• Aye-Ayes Are “Fady”
• Why String Up the Aye-Ayes?
• Scholars’ Perception of Aye-Ayes Compared with Scholars’ Perception of Malagasy-Aye-Aye Relations

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