A popular furniture store in Canada was the scene of some monkey business on Sunday.
Shoppers at an Ikea store in Toronto were greeted by a tiny monkey in a shearling coat and diaper who caused quite a stir, the CBC reported. Photos of the sighting went viral on Twitter where at least two parody accounts were created on the microblogging site within hours.
“It would start monkey screaming,” Ikea shopper Stephanie Yim told the CBC of the spectacle. “It seemed like it was screaming around for someone it knew.”
Fellow shopper Lisa Lin was also caught off guard.
“It was pretty surreal,” Lin said. “I thought ‘Is that really a monkey?’ Who brings a monkey to Ikea?”
The animal was spotted at the store’s parking garage around 2 p.m., according to The Toronto Star. The seven-month old monkey had managed to unlock his crate, open his owner’s car door and wander around the parking lot until employees and the police ushered it into the store and waited for animal services to arrive.
“It was pretty scared,” Sergeant Ed Dzingala told the CBC. “It was a tame monkey. Nobody got hurt. The monkey was a little scared, that’s all.”
Animal services identified the monkey as a rhesus macaque, an Asian specie that is illegal in Toronto. The owners, who came forward to claim the monkey just after 5 p.m., were fined $200 for owning a prohibited animal, the Star reported.
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Photo Credit: Today