The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Monkey landed at least one person in the A&E
More exotic species of animals have resulted in people ending up in hospital
A monkey sent at least one person racing to a Tayside hospital last year, new figures show.
The animal caused between one and five attendances at A&E departments in the region, with the precise figure blurred by NHS Tayside for data protection reasons.
The exact circumstances of the incident or incidents remain unclear.
Figures listing all A&E attendances caused by contact with animals show the monkey is one of two dozen species to cause a trip to hospital since November 2013.
Lizards, parrots, bats, foxes and pigs all caused at least one visit to Ninewells Hospital or Perth Royal Infirmary.
In one of the more serious incidents, a bat caused a rabies scare after biting an 11-year-old girl five times in her Dundee home earlier this year.
As reported by The Courier at the time, the pipistrelle bat injured Victoria Kimmet while she was eating her dinner.
The nightmare incident resulted in Victoria being taken to A&E at Ninewells, while an SSPCA officer was called to remove the bat from the house.
Bats can transmit the potentially deadly disease, rabies, to humans. The species also caused at least one other hospital attendance in 2013/14.
They weren’t the only winged creature to prompt a trip to A&E, with gulls, mosquitos, wasps and bees all featuring on the list, obtained by The Courier this week.
One of those incidents involved Wave 102 presenter Gary Robinson, who was left with shocking injuries after a gull attack on Dundee’s Perth Road.
The breakfast show host was divebombed by an aggressive gull in 2014, causing him to trip and fall in an effort to escape.
Even the smallest pets posed a hazard in the household, with hamsters, mice, guinea pigs and gerbils all hospitalising people in the three-year period.
Jellyfish, rats, rabbits, ferrets, snakes, cattle and 695 cases not recording the exact species complete the list.