The mystery of a mummified monkey found by construction workers renovating a downtown Minneapolis building may have been solved.

Adam Peterson, a construction worker on the renovation project on the Dayton's building, shared a photo with the Old Minneapolis page on Facebook of mummified monkey remains discovered by crews during their work.

The remains were found "in a ceiling during the renovation," the Facebook post said.

"We continue to find pieces of history in the Dayton's Project as we redevelop the building," Cailin Rogers, a spokeswoman for the $200 million renovation project, told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "Unfortunately, this was one of the recent historic discoveries."

"We don't know the origin or story behind this find, but we have been working with local museums to learn more and to find homes for artifacts like this," Rogers said.

The monkey discovery launched speculation about the primate's origins and at least one possible explanation for its presence in the building was put forward by Mayor Regan Murphy of Robbinsdale, Minn.

"My dad once stole a monkey from a Dayton's display back in the '60s," Robbinsdale Mayor Regan Murphy tweeted Tuesday.

Murphy said he learned the story from some friends of his late father.

"He and his buddy Tom skipped school and took a bus downtown, and saw the monkey in a cage or some kind of display," Murphy wrote.

The mayor said his father and Tom soon discovered the monkey was more trouble than it was worth and they released it on the escalator at Dayton's.

Murphy's mother, Monica, said her late husband, Larry, told her about the monkey story before they were married.

"We should have named it," she joked.