After a long journey home, a South African man was stunned to discover a little stowaway hidden in his car.

IOL reported that a Cape Town resident found the creature after he returned home from a festival in Johannesburg, 1,400 km (870 miles) away. 

Upon unloading his car, the man found a squirrel-sized primate staring at him with huge eyes. 

He wisely took the creature to the nearest wildlife center, where the startled primate received a clean bill of health from a vet. 

From Joburg to Cape Town… and now heading back home! A little lesser bushbaby, named Maurice, has just reminded us all...

Posted by Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital on Tuesday 23 September 2025

"The tiny hitchhiker was a lesser bush baby, and he was very far from home," Belinda Abraham, Cape of Good Hope SPCA's spokesperson, told the publication. 

The lesser bush baby is a small but vocal primate. The African Wildlife Foundation noted that they can produce 18 distinct vocalizations, which can be as loud as a human infant's. 

The sound is the most reliable way researchers have for telling the multiple subspecies apart. If you somehow miss the sound, you won't miss the smell; they use urine to mark territory and navigate.

As a National Geographic profile observed, they usually hunker down during the day in family groups before venturing out at night solo. Those gigantic eyes and ears help them locate prey in the dark, and they eat pretty much whatever they can get their paws on. 

Cape Town staff coordinated efforts with counterparts in Johannesburg to figure out where the bush baby, whom they named Maurice, had come from and how to get him home. 

Fortunately, they were able to identify the colony Maurice had fled from and arrange a flight for him to return. 

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Thankfully, no harm came to either animal or human, though we can't be as sure about the car's upholstery. 

In this case, it was a cute story that demonstrates vital work done at the local level. However, an animal venturing that far out of its native range doesn't always have a happy ending. 

The odds of an animal surviving outside its habitat are low; those that do establish themselves might become a nuisance and potentially an invasive species. There's also a significant risk of disease for both people and other animals. 

For the Cape of Good Hope's staff, the little hitchhiker left a big impression.

Abraham said, "Go well, Maurice, and thank you for bringing us all together in compassion, in generosity, and in national pride."

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