Escape from Monkey Island: The True Story of the Jungle Neighborhood's Wild Monkeys.
Hey Hey We're the Ring-tailed Monkeys.
A recent Tampa Bay Times article about the Jungle Prada neighborhood mentioned a rumor that "monkeys used to leap from branch to branch in the canopy, errant extras that escaped when filming wrapped on various Tarzan movies nearby." 1
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| Monkey swings from tree branch in a jungle. |
We asked Steve of the Jungle to explore whether the rumor was true.
Here is what he found.
- There is a colony of wild rhesus monkeys in Silver Springs, a few hours north of the Jungle. They were introduced to Florida when Tarzan movies were produced there in the 1930's and 1940's.
- There have been confirmed reports of monkeys in St. Petersburg, most notably the mystery monkey of Tampa Bay who eluded capture for three years and lived for a time in a south St. Petersburg neighborhood described as "not too much traffic, nice tall trees ‒ it's really the kind of place where a monkey could make a home."
Mystery Monkey of Tampa Bay
- If a monkey traveled to St. Petersburg, naturally it would want to live in a neighborhood known as the Jungle, where banana trees, palms, rubber trees, and muscadine grape vines are found.
- An article on page 12 of the Jungle Terrace Newsletter from May 2005 reports that there was a "cage full of monkeys" living at the Jungle Prada site in the 1940's. They were owned by Edith Holbert, a manager of the property. It's not easy to control a cage full of monkeys ‒ some of them probably got loose from time to time.
Monkeys are not native to Florida, so how did Mrs. Holbert acquire them in the 1940's? The most likely explanation is that they were escaped (and recaptured) ‒ or were descended from ‒ movie star monkeys from the Tarzan series.
Conclusion: There definitely were monkeys at the Jungle Prada site (1700 Park Street) in the 1940's and it's probably true that they "used to leap from branch to branch in the canopy" and that they were "extras that escaped when filming wrapped on various Tarzan movies nearby."
Update 5/30/2020: In 1954, Swiss chef Walter Hesser bought the Jungle Prada building and opened the Jungle Prada Restaurant. Mr. Hesser was a serious restaurateur who didn't want any monkey business, so the monkeys were advertised for sale. It turns out that these were spider monkeys, no relation to the rhesus monkeys from Silver Springs. But maybe Tarzan's monkeys were here, too. That's a lot of monkeys in the neighborhood.
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| St. Petersburg Times May 24, 1954 |
Colbert Report on the mystery monkey of Tampa Bay: Monkey on the Lam:
The Colbert Report
Note: Thanks to Dr. Ed of Jungle Terrace for directing us to the Tampa Bay Times article.
