Amy Hunter

The Minnesota Zoo has a lot of cold-adapted animals, including snow mokeys. I’m not generally drawn to monkeys. In fact, I was once bitten by a monkey. It was being cared for by a young woman at a field station where I was staying. He was not well-socialized and had already bitten a woman on the face. One day, he came into my room and grabbed a bag of raisins. I took the raisins away and tossed them across the room–figuring if the monkey took offense, it would run after the food. Nope, it screamed and ran up to bite me on the leg.

The commotion caused his caretaker to arrive and intervene. She spanked him, kicked him out of the room, and I closed my door. Dang thing came back a couple of minutes later, climbed through the window, leapt onto my face, and tried to bite my eyes. Thank goodness he was small, and I was able to peel him off and throw him across the room.

No, I am not fond of monkeys. They have a concept of revenge you simply don’t encounter in most species. Still, I found myself looking at the snow monkeys at the zoo today, as I so rarely do. This one looked back:

She kept swivelling around to get a better angle on me, very intent on staring into the lens. She almost looks like she’s posing for the cover of Cosmo, doesn’t she?

Don’t be fooled. In the heart of this monkey dwells a homicidal maniac. They are rather cute when they’re tiny, though:

And this one? This one was being downright goofy:

I still wouldn’t want to run into him in a dark alley, though. He’d rip your face off, steal your raisins, and run off laughing, I bet!