Pottos are creatures of night (making them nocturnal) who spend the majority of their time in trees (making them arboreal). They move through their treed environment on all four limbs (that is, quadrupedally) slowly, deliberately, and silently. No death-defying acrobatic leaps for these primates. Their opposable thumbs and an opposable big toe on each foot allow them to firmly grasp tree branches as they advance through the forest; their toilet claws lend additional support.

Most of their evening is spent foraging and eating; lesser time is spent socializing. Daytime hours find these prosimians curled up asleep in tree hollows. In Cameroon, mated adult male/female pairs often sleep together or near one another. However, in Gabon, adult males typically sleep alone while adult females sleep with their offspring.

As strepsirrhines, pottos rely less on visual input than do their “dry nosed” primate kin, the haplorhines (of the higher suborder Haplorhini). Fortunately, pottos’ morphological adaptation of a tapetum lucidum provides them with that eye shine that illuminates their nighttime path.

And it’s a good thing that pottos can see in the dark, because predators lurk. Wild, medium-sized cat-like carnivores known as viverrids (belonging to the family Viverridae and to the suborder Feliformia) hunt and eat pottos. Feliform predators of Central African pottos include the golden cat (Profelis aurata); the leopard (Panthera pardus); the primarily frugivorous African palm civet (Nandinia binotata), who is a relative of the mongoose; and the black-legged mongoose (Bdeogale nigripes).

As with other nocturnal primates, pottos are adept at blending into their environment to avoid detection. This predator-avoidance strategy is called “crypsis” in science-speak, more informally referred to as “camouflage.” Dense vegetation allows the pottos to keep themselves hidden. Pottos further deflect attention from potential predators by moving silently, traveling alone or in small groups, and using only discreet vocalizations when communicating with one another.

Mother Nature has given pottos another trick to evade detection by predators. Thanks to an adaptation of vascular bundles in their limb vessels that regulate blood circulation to contracted muscles—a phenomenon called “retia mirabilia”—pottos are able to remain still for long periods of time without fatigue. In cooperation with their super flexible wrist and ankle joints, a prolonged grip allows them to “wait out” lurking predators.

Should pottos find themselves in a situation where they must defend themselves, their scapular shield can save their neck—literally. Those bony protuberances are sharp, and a potto who engages in combat can, with a well-placed head butt, inflict injury to a would-be predator and, hopefully, knock the predator to the ground below.

The scapular shield also provides protection, and a deterrent, to a predator—or another potto—who attempts to chomp down on the animal’s neck. The scapular shield’s stiff sensory whiskers (vibrissae) also play an important, sensory role in keeping a potto safe; tactile sensitivity is critical to the potto’s survival of a life-or-death situation. For example, when a potto tucks his head between his arms in a defensive posture, rendering him unable to see an approaching predator, the vibrissae alert him of the menace. Sometimes, the menace is human.

Potto defensive reactions to human captors include hissing, grunting, baring of their teeth, repeatedly biting the branch where they cling, and, finally, lunging at their attacker. To escape extreme danger, pottos have been known to deliberately release their grip and drop to the ground.