Some Monkey Business Went Down in PA

💥🚚🐒 Several monkeys were set free on Friday after a trailer carrying a load of 100 animals collided with a dump truck on an interstate in rural Pennsylvania. By late Saturday, the last of the escaped monkeys had been recaptured.

• ​​These cynomolgus macaque monkeys are often used in scientific research and can cost up to $10,000 apiece. (Quick math: That’s a ~$1 million trailer load.)
• The shipment in question was en route to a CDC-approved quarantine facility after arriving early Friday from Mauritius, an island nation in the Indian Ocean.
• Health officials said finding and apprehending the escaped monkeys was a top priority since the animals have been known to transmit diseases like monkeypox and the herpes B virus.

+From the annals: Cynomolgus monkeys were in such high demand for vaccine research at the start of the pandemic that some scientists discussed creating a ‘strategic monkey reserve’ similar to emergency stockpiles maintained by the US government for oil and grain.