By now, you’ve probably heard of a baby macaque named Punch. The monkey captured the hearts of millions of internet users after he was filmed carrying and hugging a stuffed animal—bigger than himself—around his enclosure at Japan’s Ichikawa City Zoo.
As zookeepers explained, Punch was abandoned by his mother shortly after he was born, so he began using the soft toy as a “surrogate mother.”
Videos of Punch holding the stuffed animal have made the rounds on social media and led to a significant increase in visitors at the zoo, located east of Tokyo. The baby macaque was even featured in a Saturday Night Live skit.
