A group of spider monkeys in a zoo took revenge on a girl who kept hitting their enclosure when they grabbed her by the hair. Warning, contains scenes some may find distressing:
Phone footage showed the girl approaching the monkey enclosure with her phone in one hand and the other swinging towards the chain link fence keeping the spider monkeys at bay.
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The video, which went viral when posted to TikTok, shows a monkey reaching through to grab the girl by her hair as she gets close enough to hit the enclosure fence.
The monkey begins shrieking and howling before other people are able to pull the girl free and scare the animal away by waving towels at it.
Luckily the girl didn't seem too hurt after getting free, but that wasn't the end of things, however, as seconds later the girl walked right past the monkeys in their cage again and ended up close enough for them to grab her once more.
This time two monkeys team up to grab her hair, though the girl is quickly able to pull herself to freedom.
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The video, which has been viewed by more than eight million people, has many wondering why she went so close to the monkeys enclosure in the first place, or even went back for seconds.
One person commented 'sorry but she started it', a sentiment which plenty of others agreed with.
Others wondered why the people around the girl didn't step in to help sooner, as when she gets grabbed the first time they stand around and laugh for a few seconds.
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Someone said 'everyone laughing while she gets her wig snatched', and another commented, 'they just sitting back letting it happen do something'.
More commenters said they thought this moment would be a 'teachable lesson' for the girl – and really for everyone – that disturbing animals in their enclosure is a bad idea.
Spider monkeys are wild animals and while they look quite small and cuddly, if kept in captivity they can develop the habit of trying to attack people.
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In general, when it comes to zoo animals 'look, don't touch' is normally a good lesson to keep in mind.
Even if the animals seem fine with you getting close it isn't always the case and it can really upset them to have their space invaded.
Last year a video of a woman breaking into a spider monkey enclosure in Texas went viral as footage showed her getting up close and personal with the animals and offering them snacks.
While she insisted she'd done nothing wrong and caused no harm, spider monkey expert Dr Victoria Milne warned that people getting too close and invading their enclosures was 'really disruptive' for the animals.
Joe Harker