The aye-aye's odd-looking fingers, pointy teeth, big eyes, and huge ears give some people the creeps. Seeing an aye-aye is considered very bad luck to many superstitious residents of Madagascar, the African island country where these animals live in the wild. In parts of the country, people kill aye-ayes on sight, hoping to prevent anything "evil" from happening. The aye-aye's bad reputation isn't helped by the fact that it's active only at night, when things can seem a lot scarier to people.

The truth about this five-pound animal, a type of lemur, is that it's harmless. "Each one of its strange-looking characteristics helps an aye-aye survive," says David Haring, who works at the Duke University Primate Center in Durham, North Carolina.

Scientists at the center study the habits of aye-ayes and other lemurs in an effort to save the endangered animals. Every aye-aye at the center has a creepy Halloween-type of name such as Warlock (a male witch), Nosferatu (a movie vampire), Morticia (a TV character), and Poe (a writer who wrote spooky stories). But the little creatures are anything but scary. "Aye-ayes are actually gentle, curious primates," Haring says. "One researcher used a portable cage to study the babies here. She stayed inside it, not the animals. That was the only way she could take notes without them swiping her pencils and paper!"

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