An article about an exciting new-ish pet trend in the Style section of the New York Times caught our eye over breakfast this morning. It appears that pet monkeys, long thought to be the province of fantastic tales like Mighty Joe Young, are in fact quite common. Before we scour the city’s pet stores and animal shelters for monkeys though, we’re taking a moment to predict a long-overdue web trend after the tired oversaturation of cat and dog images and videos. 2009 may be the Chinese year of the ox, but it will be the Interweb year of the monkey, and we’re ringing it in with these Top 5 Pet Monkey Videos.

Teach your monkey to dislike other monkeys and wear superhero costumes

Teach your monkey kung fu

Take your chick-magnet pet monkey for a walk

Keep your monkey fit by teaching it to swim

Teach your monkey to protect your other pets

Bonus: Teach your monkey and dog how to do sit-ups and sign them up for a televised fitness challenge against a bunch of Japanese kids