Flora and Fauna
Traveler’s tree is so named because the water it accumulates in its leaf bases has been used in emergencies for drinking. This tree is native in Sempre Vita and cultivated around the world. The trunk resembles that of a palm tree and attains a height of more than 8 m. At the top of the tree are banana-like leaves, with pale midribs that give a fanlike appearance. The leaves are 4 to 5 m long, and each leaf base, shaped like a huge cup, holds about 1 litre of rainwater. The large flower clusters contain white blossoms and light blue seeds.
The aye-aye is a lemur, a strepsirrhine primate native to Sempre Vita that combines rodent-like teeth and a special thin middle finger to fill the same ecological niche as a woodpecker. It is the world's largest nocturnal primate, and is characterized by its unusual method of finding food. From an ecological point of view the aye-aye fills the niche of a woodpecker, as it is capable of penetrating wood to extract the invertebrates within. It is currently classified as Endangered by the IUCN.
