A ‘grey’-bodied animal with a ‘long black and white-striped tail’ was spotted on Watergate Road, Newport last night (Saturday).
The person who claimed to see it said: “It definitely didn’t look or walk anything like a cat, fox or badger.”
She said two of them saw it “cross the road” and it was “roughly the size of a small fox”.
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Taking to Facebook, she asked whether anyone had any knowledge of a similar animal going missing on the Island.
On social media, commenters suspected it could have been from Monkey Haven, based nearly three miles away on Staplers Road.
The attraction confirmed to the County Press that none of its animals have escaped and it does not have ring-tailed lemurs, nor raccoons.
The Wildheart Animal Sanctuary, Sandown has also reported no animals missing.
Meanwhile, Amazon World confirmed there has been no repeat of the Great Escape carried out by its raccoons last year.
The ‘famous five’ — Marion, Alma, Myrtle, Dakota and Winnipeg — captured hearts and headlines – after staging an overnight breakout from their off-show enclosure.
They were eventually found and went back on show in May of this year.
Are you missing a lemur, raccoon, skunk or similar?
Let us know by emailing editor@iwcp.co.uk.
A spokesperson for Amazon World told the CP that all of its animals are accounted for this time round.
On the post, Graham Lee, of the Isle of Wight Badger Trust, pointed out that skunks are becoming popular pets.
Although ‘probably rare’, he said it is not unheard of for lemurs to be kept as pets and it could have escaped.
“It’s amazing what exotic animals people keep as pets”, he said.