If you’ve been on the internet in the past few weeks, chances are you’ve seen
him: a tiny gray-brown monkey dragging a big, stuffed orangutan around Japan’s Ichikawa Zoo. His name? Punch-kun, or Punch for short. His story? Early abandonment by his mother, careful treatment from local zookeepers and instant social media fame. But are all the (human) primates jumping to Punch’s defense justified? And what’s normal for Japanese macaque society, anyway? To find out, NPR’s
Katia Riddle chats with psychology professor and animal expert
Lauren Robinson.
Interested in more animal science? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.
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