A Florida woman spotted what she thought might be a large cat in the backyard of her home, but soon realized it was something even more unusual: a monkey.
Catherine Castillo said she spotted the animal behind her Longwood home, near Wekiva Springs State Park, and started recording video with her phone.
“At first I thought it was like a large cat,” Castillo told WKMG-TV. “And then it processed and I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, that’s a monkey.'”
She said wildlife is common in the area, but this incident was different.
“We see all kinds of things. There’s deer, bobcat, coyotes. This was the first monkey,” she told WESH-TV.
Another neighborhood resident also captured video of the monkey, a rhesus macaque, moving through the area.
Castillo reported the encounter to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“They said, ‘No, it’s OK, just don’t approach it, don’t feed it,'” Castillo said. “They said they would do unofficial documentation of the sighting.”
Longwood is located about 70 miles from Silver Springs, where a wild population of monkeys has lived ever since being brought to an island that is now part of Silver Springs State Park by a tour boat operator in 1938. The operator was unaware that the rhesus macaques were strong swimmers, and they quickly escaped the island.
