After he was rejected by his mother, the struggles and triumphs of Punch, a baby monkey in a Japanese zoo, have become a viral sensation. “I am Punch and he is me.”This is what my daughter recently texted in our family group chat. Punch is, as millions of his fans know, a 7-month-old macaque monkey living at Ichikawa City Zoo, outside Tokyo. Rejected at birth by his mother, he was initially cared for by zookeepers before being reintroduced to the monkey enclosure. But the joy that little monkey feels for his orangutan, which he uses as shield, surrogate and playmate, is both heartbreaking and heartwarming.

Source: Punch February 21, 2026 07:04 UTC