A Baby Macaque Has Gone Viral with His Plushie — What Punch Tells Us About Social Hierarchies

Meet Punch, one of 2026’s unlikeliest heroes. The baby Japanese macaque won hearts (and the internet) after he was rejected by his fellow monkeys and bonded with an orangutan plushie.

The young monkey is a resident at Ichikawa City Zoological and Botanical Gardens, near Tokyo, Japan, and was born in July 2025. According to an update from the zoo, published on X (formerly Twitter), Punch was hand-reared by staff at the zoo after being abandoned.

Though he has been living with the troop since he was reintroduced to the enclosure on Jan. 19, 2026, it has been a turbulent journey to say the least. Fans across the world have tuned in to watch Punch’s various attempts to integrate into the group, with clips online documenting the ups and downs.

The Backstory of Punch, the Baby Japanese Macaque

According to the Japanese newspaper, The Mainichi, Punch was born to a first-time mum, who may have abandoned her baby due to exhaustion. No macaques in the enclosure adopted Punch as one of their own, so the team took things into their own hands, hand-rearing the baby macaque.

That is when he was introduced to his favorite soft toy. Young monkeys often cling to their mother, but with no mother for Punch to cling to, the staff at the zoo had to find alternatives. There was a clear winner — a stuffed orangutan, larger than Punch himself, that not only provided comfort during those first few months but, more recently, as he attempts to integrate with the rest of the troop.

“It is likely that Punch on a physiologically level feels a need for support and social comfort, and he is in part receiving this from his toy,” Patrick Tkaczynski, lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University and council member of the Primate Society of Great Britain, told Discover.

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Re-Integrating into the Group

Assimilating into the group has not been a smooth ride. While there have been clips of older macaques grooming Punch — an activity associated with social bonding, according to a study published in the American Journal of Primatology — one video that went viral showed an aggressive encounter.

According to a statement published by the zoo, the incident occurred after Punch approached a baby, and the scolding monkey was likely the baby’s mother. Punch responds by running to his orangutan for comfort, but was his usual self by lunchtime.

Social Hierarchies and Attachment

Japanese macaques live in large groups that can contain more than 160 individuals, according to Lincoln Park Zoo. They also feature strict dominance hierarchies, said Tkaczynski to Discover, “meaning the dominant individuals at the top of society can attack others at will and with little means for the low-ranking individuals to fight back.”

This makes understanding the social dynamics of the group, as well as which monkeys to avoid and which to befriend, essential.

“For young Japanese macaques that do not at least have the support of their mothers in early life, this makes the learning curve even steeper and more formidable,” said Tkaczynski to Discover. “All that said, orphan Japanese macaques have been seen in the wild and captivity, and some manage to socially integrate themselves fully even without their mothers.”

Punch’s story, and his bond with his plushie, highlights the importance of attachment. Primates are vulnerable when young — “we have to quickly make attachments to caregivers in order to survive,” said Tkaczynski to Discover.

This was highlighted by an (ethically controversial) study published in the 1950s by the psychologist Harry Harlow, who discovered baby macaques formed attachments to surrogate mothers made of cloth (not dissimilar to Punch’s toy) even when those mothers were unable to provide for the child.

As for Punch, updates from the zoo reveal he is “playing with the other baby monkeys” and is “steadily fitting into the group.”

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Article Sources

Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:

• This article references information from a study published in the American Journal of Primatology: Social play among juvenile wild Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) strengthens their social bonds
• This article references information from the Lincoln Park Zoo: Japanese Macaque
• This article references information from a study published in American Psychologist: The Nature of Love
• This article references information from the Japanese newspaper, The Mainich: Abandoned monkey at zoo near Tokyo finds comfort in stuffed animal, creates buzz