Rare baby spider monkey makes first appearance at zoo

Heart-warming footage shows a rare baby monkey being cradled by its mum two weeks after being born.

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to Medley of Monkeys. We've got some very exciting news to share with

00:05you today. So we've got a new baby spider monkey here at Colchester Zoo. So mum, Cheekaboo,

00:10she's very protective and quite a good mum as well. She's also quite experienced. So

00:14actually we've got two of her other offspring in here as well. So we've got Terry, who is

00:18three years old, and Julie, who's seven years old. They're both quite inquisitive about

00:22their new baby sibling as well. And then we have Julius, who is the dad, and he is a very

00:27playful monkey in general. He's getting quite involved with babies and just by coming up

00:31with Cheekaboo as well. So baby's still only a few weeks old at the moment, so we don't

00:36yet know whether we've got a little baby girl or a baby boy. So we'll be looking out in

00:41the next few weeks to see if we've got a girl or a boy. Make sure you come down to the zoo

00:46to kind of visit and keep up with our baby. But this baby being born is really important

00:52for conservation of the species. Colombian black spider monkeys are vulnerable to extinction

00:56in the wild. So it's really important that we've got the birth of this new little youngster.

01:02But yeah, definitely make sure you come down and visit and support us. And then through

01:06us, you'll be helping to support animals like these out in the wild as well.