A Florida woman’s peaceful kayak was abruptly interrupted when dozens of feral monkeys cannonballed into the water at Silver Springs state park on Thursday, October 16.

Something sent monkeys at a Florida state park cannonballing into the water earlier this month, and a woman on a kayaking trip captured the hilarious moment on camera.

Trenda Kitchen was kayaking at Silver Springs State Park, located about 40 miles south of Gainesville, Florida, when she recorded a video of the group of monkeys on Oct. 16.

“It’s raining monkeys!” Kitchen yelled, recording the dozens of monkeys leaping from the trees and into the water in front of her. One even landed near her kayak, Kitchen said, laughing.

There were at least a dozen of them, Kitchen told Storyful.

“What the heck’s making them all jump?” Kitchen questioned in the video.

The animals were rhesus monkeys, and they learn to swim as early as two days old, according to researchers at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center.

When the monkeys are seen in the water, they could be searching for food, escaping danger, regulating their body temperature or playing, the researchers said.

In Kitchen's video of the monkeys, the moment sent her into a fit of laughter, especially when one of the creatures landed pretty close to her kayak.

“Go on, little one," she said, laughing joyfully.

Rhesus monkeys date back to the 1930s in Florida

The monkeys are native to Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and Vietnam. In Florida, where the video was captured, the monkeys are nonnative, meaning they did not naturally appear in the area.

Typically, nonnative species are introduced to areas accidentally through cargo or escapes from captivity. Additionally, the animas can pop up when individuals release unwanted pets or new species to control pests, according to University of Florida researchers.

The monkeys were first introduced to the Silver River in the 1930s when a commercial river boat captain released six of them on an island there, according to University of Florida researchers. The captain wanted to increase tourism, they said.

Due to their swimming abilities, the monkeys were able to swim to the forest and breed, according to the researchers. By the 1980s, over four decades later, there were about 400 of the monkey species in the area, the researchers said.

Rhesus monkeys spend time in both trees and on the ground. They are mainly herbivorous, and also eat insects, shellfish, bird eggs and small vertebrates, the researchers said.

A complicated history for the rhesus monkeys

Rhesus monkeys are known to raid crops, so they are sometimes considered pests. The researchers noted that wild rhesus monkeys are often afraid of people, but when fed, they can behave aggressively.

As time went on, officials tried to limit the monkeys' numbers by trapping them. At one point, private trappers sold some of the monkeys to biomedical research facilities, much to the dismay of animal activists.

Invasive species, such as rhesus monkeys, can hurt the ecosystems they are introduced to because they prey on native species and compete with them for resources, the researchers said.

The rhesus monkeys in Silver Springs State Park once ate quail eggs when they found them in artificial bird nests that researchers placed in the area, suggesting that the animals could pose a threat to breeding birds.

Do these monkeys pose a health risk?

The rhesus monkeys in Silver Springs have also tested positive for Herpes B Virus; however, there are no reports of other species contracting the virus from the animals.

There have been no reports of humans contracting Herpes B from a wild rhesus monkey, but 50 cases of humans contracting it from the monkeys in laboratory settings have been reported.

Nearly half of the people who contracted Herpes B from the monkeys in laboratories passed away, while the other half suffered permanent neurological damage, University of Florida researchers have found.

Transmitted through bites and scratches, the disease is rare, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency added that hundreds of bites and scratches are reported every year in monkey facilities across the nation, but people are rarely infected.

Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Email her at sdmartin@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Watch 'raining monkeys' cannonball into water near kayaker

Reporting by Saleen Martin, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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