The expression monkey business in English is understood, most often, not literally – “monkey business”, but figuratively – as “suspicious action”.
But a recent incident in a zoo located in southern Germany, near the border with Switzerland, the city of Loeffingen, showed that this expression can be understood both literally and figuratively. About two dozen barbarian macaques, belonging to the category of anthropoids, broke free from the enclosure and spent the whole day in the forest next to the zoo, basking in the sun. It is not entirely clear how the macaques managed to get over the enclosure fence, but according to the police, this could be due to the construction work at the zoo.
At first, the monkeys roamed the zoo in a flock, but its workers could not catch them, and then they completely lost sight of them. But after a few hours, the macaques were nevertheless found and placed in the cages of the aviary.
Barbary macaques live in the Atlas Mountains in northern Africa. A small but famous flock of these primates lives on the other side of the continent – in the British enclave of Gibraltar.
Newspaper headline:
“Free, to the pampas …”