Whoa, they found a marmoset on the Peninsula earlier this week! Marmosets are native to Central and South America, so it is unusual to find one of these creatures here in the Bay Area.

The story of the discovery of the tiny primate ( and I mean *TINY*… he was mistaken for a squirrel!) is pretty amusing:

[Andrew] Padilla and his roommates ended up phoning the SPCA to report a stray monkey running across the back fence.

“We thought, ‘Sure. What have you been drinking?’ But when our officer arrived, there he was,” said Scott Delucchi, spokesman for the animal care agency.

Officer Brian Schenck, armed with a banana provided by the startled resident, was able to coax the marmoset into custody.

(quoted from SFGate)

No one seems to know where he came from, perhaps a lost pet or research animal? Padilla reports the animal to be very friendly, so assumptions are that he was somewhat domesticated. Regardless, plans are to send the furry little creature to a primate sanctuary in Texas.

Image from Peninsula Humane Society/SPCA