This video is in Portuguese, so just mute it and cue up a bit of old Ludwig Van as you watch sneaky monkey thugs infiltrate a Brazilian home. With humans perpetually up in their business, monkeys in Rio de Janeiro are fighting back by turning to a life of crime.

Reader support helps sustain our work. Donate today to keep our climate news free. All donations DOUBLED!

This is no casual looting, either — it's a monkey mob. The housebreaking simians have a signaling system (mimicking birdcalls) and a thoroughly orchestrated plan of attack. They're not quite backflipping through radar beams, but it's close. 

LIke most things (especially crime sprees!) this is probably humans' fault, not for impinging on the monkeys' habitat — the city has actually painstakingly restored the giant urban forest where the monkeys live — but for kind-heartedly feeding them treats. Apparently monkeys are to people food as zombies are to people meat — once they get a taste, you can forget about getting them to pay attention to anything else. 

Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one.