Gazebo with a picturesque background at the zoo.

Just to the left of where this photo was taken is a little path under tree canopy. I happened to be there at the same time that a monkey and its child were sitting in the middle of the path. A small family – mother, father, and child in a pram – decided that path was the one they wished to walk up.

As they approached, they noticed the monkeys and pointed at them. Their interest in being anywhere near the previously cute little monkeys quickly dissipated as the mother’s maternal instinct to protect its baby kicked in, and she lunged towards them with bared teeth and stretched-out arms to exaggerate her size before then pressing herself flat against the ground and letting out an aggressive hiss.

Naturally, the family were scared within an inch of their lives and did a swift 180 to get away. The father, who was pushing the pram, wheeled it around with such vigour that two of the wheels left the ground, and their baby almost fell out.

They all got away unscathed, but the obvious moral of the story is that you don’t muck with monkeys, especially not mother monkeys with infants.