Happy Halloween

If you prefer your creatures of the night to be cute rather than cuddly, have we got the critter for you. This is an aye aye, a species of nocturnal lemuroriginally found only in Madagascar. The aye aye is a harmless omnivore with one long, spindly finger it uses to fish grubs out of rotten logs. Like 91 percent of lemur species, aye ayes are threatened with extinction, but it s not just habitat loss and deforestation that may do this fuzzy creature in. Madagascar superstition holds that aye ayes are harbingers of death, so the animals are often killed on sight.

This particular aye aye is a resident of the Duke Lemur Center in Durham, N.C., a research and conservation facility that houses 250 lemurs and their close relatives. In honor of Halloween and the wrongly maligned aye aye, the Lemur Center has a special deal for the month of October: Pledge a donation and receive not only a packet of information about a lemur of your choice, but also this cute photo.