A truck that was transporting monkeys overturned on a highway in the US state of Mississippi, allowing the animals to escape, local officials say.
"All but one of the escaped monkeys have been destroyed," the Jasper County Sheriff's Department said. But in a later update, it said officials had since been able to "get a correct count" and determined three monkeys were still on the loose.
The monkeys were being housed at Tulane University's National Biomedical Research Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, for scientific research purposes.
The sheriff's department had warned the monkeys were carrying diseases, but Tulane University later said they had not been exposed to “any infectious agent”.
It is unclear exactly how many monkeys were initially on the truck, who owned them, where they were being taken, who was transporting them or why the truck overturned.
