Minnesota’s mummified monkey headed to museum

A mummified monkey found in a former department store in Minneapolis is on its way to a museum.

The carcass, which was found in an air duct last month during renovation at a former Dayton’s store, will be going on display at the Science Museum of Minnesota across the river in St. Paul.

The exact details of how the “Dayton’s monkey” will be displayed are still being worked out, but the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported that the monkey will be displayed in the building’s lobby, which is accessible without paying admission to the museum.

{“url”:”https://twitter.com/daytonsmonkey/status/994627795178414081″,”author_name”:”Dayton’s Mummy Monkey”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/daytonsmonkey”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;Yo &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/sciencemuseummn?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@sciencemuseummn&#lt;/a&#gt; you best give me a cut of that sweet merch you’re gonna sell!&#lt;/p&#gt;— Dayton's Mummy Monkey (@daytonsmonkey) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/daytonsmonkey/status/994627795178414081?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;May 10, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}

“We’re taking this on because the Dayton’s monkey is a fun piece of Minnesota history and a good example of the natural mummification process,” museum spokeswoman Kim Ramsden wrote in an email to the media. “We recognize that there is a lot of curiosity around the monkey and as a museum we have the resources to provide interpretation and broad community access.”

The monkey’s discovery was first noted by the Facebook page Old Minneapolis and soon caught the attention of the internet, with somebody even forming a Twitter account for the mummified carcass.

{“author_name”:”Old Minneapolis”,”author_url”:”https://www.facebook.com/oldmpls/”,”provider_url”:”https://www.facebook.com”,”provider_name”:”Facebook”,”success”:true,”height”:null,”html”:”&#lt;div id=”fb-root”&#gt;&#lt;/div&#gt;n&#lt;script&#gt;(function(d, s, id) {n var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];n if (d.getElementById(id)) return;n js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;n js.src = ‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v3.0’;n fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);n}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));&#lt;/script&#gt;&#lt;div class=”fb-post” data-href=”https://www.facebook.com/oldmpls/posts/1770478686305632″ data-width=”552″&#gt;&#lt;blockquote cite=”https://www.facebook.com/oldmpls/posts/1770478686305632″ class=”fb-xfbml-parse-ignore”&#gt;&#lt;p&#gt;An Old Minneapolis Exclusive: The Mystery of the Mummified Minneapolis MonkeynnBy now most of us know that the Dayton's…&#lt;/p&#gt;Posted by &#lt;a href=”https://www.facebook.com/oldmpls/”&#gt;Old Minneapolis&#lt;/a&#gt; on &#lt;a href=”https://www.facebook.com/oldmpls/posts/1770478686305632″&#gt;Sunday, April 8, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;&#lt;/div&#gt;”,”type”:”rich”,”version”:”1.0″,”url”:”https://www.facebook.com/oldmpls/posts/1770478686305632″,”width”:552}

While nobody really knows how the monkey ended up in the department store’s ducts, there are been no shortage of theories, according to the Pioneer Press.

Some claim the animal escaped from a pet shop in the building, while others think it was stolen from the shop and released as a prank.

Gov. Mark Dayton, whose family founded the Dayton’s company, even offered up his own theory during an April 12 news conference, suggesting the monkey was part of a rainforest display at the store in the late 1960s.