Tiny Animals That Caused Big Problems and Induced Chaos

Remember the small monkey in a coat caught wandering a Canadian Ikea parking lot in 2012? Everyone went crazy for it.Darwin the macaque caused chaos in the Ikea parking lot.Darwin the macaque got attention for a minute, then people forgot. Now, keeping exotic primates as pets is illegal. Yasmin Nadhuka, his owner, received a fine after the fame. Authorities took Darwin from her and sent him to a sanctuary in Ontario. She lost a brutal, long court case because you cannot keep a wild macaque in your suburban home and use it for errands.

If you miss dial-up days and get angry when the Internet lags, India is fighting to make the Internet accessible for all citizens.This happened for an unusual reason.India's government plans to install over 400,000 miles of fiber cable to bring Internet to hundreds of thousands of villages. Macaque monkeys eat and steal the cables. Local officials in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, report they cannot stop them; the monkeys are seen as avatars of the Hindu god Hanuman.

In 2014, a man driving on the Florida Turnpike...The Florida man tried to rescue a cat from the highway. This action caused a deadly accident.The man tried to rescue a cat he saw in the road. He caused a deadly crash that backed up the highway for miles during rush hour. The man saw the cat in the center lane, pulled over, and tried to drive into traffic to save it. This caused a massive chain reaction that killed the cat, an old woman, and left the man critically injured.

In 2013, a jellyfish took a stand against nuclear power in Sweden.A swarm of jellyfish took a stand against nuclear power in Sweden.The jellyfish swarm forced EON SE to shut down Sweden's largest nuclear reactor for days. Power output at the 1,400-megawatt Oskarshamn-3 unit stopped. The jellyfish invaded the cooling water inlet at the Baltic coast reactor. More than one jellyfish can clog a nuclear plant, but this was not the first or only time this occurred.The 1,400-megawatt Oskarshamn-3 unit ground to a halt as the jellyfish invaded the cooling water inlet at the reactor on the Baltic coast. These jellyfish showed concern for the world's fate. This happened before.

In 2012, a German businessman crashed his nearly $100,000 Ferrari on his way home. He swerved at the last second to avoid hittingA man totaled a Ferrari trying to avoid hitting an unsuspecting hedgehog.The hedgehog sat in the road. Joerg Daecher told police his car slipped on leaves in a wooded area as he spun. The hedgehog was fine, but Daecher's Ferrari sustained over $30,000 in damage.

This problem is serious for airplanes, not just a punk band name. Airplanes face an uncommon but serious issue.Airplanes have a 1 in 4.7 million chanceBirds can cause plane crashes. These birds are more likely to die from poison or falls than flying to visit Ma and Pa. In April 1960, a bird strike killed 62 people. A plane leaving Logan airport...The plane crashed into Boston Harbor.Twenty thousand starlings appeared suddenly. Hundreds jammed the engines. This caused problems.

Bird strikes also crippled US Airways flight 1549.This happened during the miracle on the Hudson.Luckily, every passenger in that incident survived.

In June 2016,...A massive car crash occurred.A trailer full of bees and yellow jackets crashed three tractor trailers across three lanes of I-85 in Charlotte, NC for hours. The bee swarms terrorized the highway. People reported being stung fifty or more times. Clearing the incident took hours; removing the bees took days. No one was hurt by the crash, but bee swarms attacked many people because the trailer held four hundred hives.

Squirrels are plotting to send humanity back to the Stone Age by destroying the power source. Now you know.Cyber Squirrel 1This site maps global squirrel attacks on the power grid by year and month. In 2015, over one hundred squirrel attacks hit the US power grid, causing widespread electrical problems.

In September 2015, an Indiana mom saw a spider on her shoulder while pulling out her driveway.She jumped from the car.The car was still in reverse. She left her nine-year-old son in the back seat. The son jumped into the driver's seat and tried to brake. Terrified nine-year-olds are poor drivers. The car backed into a school bus. The child went to the hospital for injuries; no one else was hurt.

In April 2016, over 20,000 people in six Dutch cities...People lost power for over an hour.Enexis spokesperson says a pigeon touched two parts of the system, causing a short circuit. This trapped people in elevators across the Netherlands; this is not a fun way to spend an afternoon.

Fearing a snake dropped on you is one thing. Being scared of a tiny snake in a giant bus is different. In 2014, a bus driver in rural South Africa...Rural South AfricaThe taxi minibus driver jumped ship when hit, and four passengers died. Villagers hunted the snake and stoned it to death.

In 2014, residents in a Philadelphia, PA neighborhood had trouble when a dead raccoon got tangled......Dead raccoon filth clogged power lines. Residents called Peco and animal control. Both agencies blamed each other. The rotting carcass stayed in the lines for weeks. Local news got involved. They called Peco. Peco finally admitted the job was theirs and fixed it.

In 2009, a Hartford, CT driver hit parked cars. The driver claimed baby snakes caused the accident.The driver had baby snakes in his pockets.The snakes slithered out. This caused his inattention and the crash. They got loose near the gas and brake pedals. He bent down to retrieve them from his pockets. He crashed into parked cars, and his car flipped. Animal Control never found the snakes. Someone clearly tried to avoid responsibility in a strange way.

Tonbridge and Hadlow residents lost it over a weekend without internet and phone lines in July 2015. Sky, the internet provider, offered no explanation or details. This angered people more. Customers used free WiFi to flood Sky's social media with complaints. Sky later admitted problems came froma rat eating some cablesHungry Rat Causes '48 Hours of Hell' Outside London in the list 'Tiny Animals That Caused Big Problems and Induced Chaos'.

In September 2014, a wild chicken from Kauai, Hawaii got into trouble. It wandered into high-voltage equipment at the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative.Kauai Island Utility Cooperative supplies power to 30,000 residents on Kauai Island. One chicken knocked out power for over 13,000 people.