Tarsier

What enormous eyes these little primates have! Each of the tarsier’s eyeballs by itself weighs more than its brain. You can see this when you look at its skeleton. The tarsier hardly moves its huge eyes. Nor does it have to, because it can turn its neck 180 degrees, just like an owl!

The tarsiers are the only primates (the order that includes strepsirrhini, apes and humans) whose diet consists exclusively of meat. Most of them live either alone or in small groups of no more than four animals. They’re not particularly shy, and you’ll usually find them clinging to a tree trunk.

This tarsier skeleton was collected by the German zoologist Salomon Müller (1804-1863) for the Natural Science Commission for the Netherlands East Indies during his expedition to what is now Indonesia. Between 1820 and 1850, a total of 16 young men were dispatched to the Netherlands East Indies on various collection expeditions initiated by Coenraad Jacob Temminck, the first Director of the National Museum of Natural History. Together, these collectors formed the Natural Science Commission for the Netherlands East Indies.