(Web Desk) - A cute and tiny rare baby monkey has been welcomed to one of the UK’s most popular zoos.
And it comes just a few months after its mother underwent pioneering surgery that spared her foot from amputation.
15-year-old Masaya is the first ever roloway monkey to have an operation to remove a golf-ball sized mass off of her foot.
Luckily, she only needed to have one toe amputated during the procedure, which took place at University of Liverpool’s Small Animal Teaching Hospital.
Remarkably, she is able to walk tall after giving birth Lagertha.
Lagertha is her third infant.
Roloway monkeys are critically endangered due to habitat loss and poaching.
Experts believe there are less than two thousand roloway monkeys left in their native Ghana and the Ivory Coast.
“Masaya is a very experienced mum and she’s parenting magnificently,” said Zoe Edwards, primate keeper at Chester Zoo, where the monkeys live.
“Lagertha is only a few weeks old and is very dinky, but already curious about the roloway monkey habitat and inquisitive about us.
“The fact Masaya’s foot has healed so well is a huge relief.
“If she’d had an amputation, we’d have been left with real questions about whether she could hold her offspring or continue with her normal behaviours.