Punch’s life started with a metaphorical gut-punch, but things are cuddlier, and happier, now.

At just about any zoo, you’ll see a lot of kids holding plushies, either one they brought from home or one they just got at the gift shop. So ordinarily, it wouldn’t be all that noteworthy to visitors to Japan’s Ichikawa City Zoo to see a six-month-old cuddling a stuffed animal…except this six-month old is an actual monkey.

Punch is a Japanese macaque who was born at the zoo, located east of Tokyo in Chiba Prefecture, last July. Usually, newborn macaques cling to their mother’s fur for a sense of emotional security, but Punch was abandoned by his mother, with the exhaustion of giving birth to her first offspring leaving her without the energy for childrearing.

With no mother to nurse Punch, zookeepers began bottle-feeding Punch from the day after his birth, but still needed to provide that mental security of having something to snuggle up with. At first they tried using rolled-up towels, but the length of the fibers was too short for the baby monkey to grip. So then they tried stuffed animals, and Punch was able to cling comfortably to the longer fur of an Ikea orangutang plushie.

▼ Specifically, it looks to be Ikea’s Djungelskog plushie, as seen on the company’s website here.

Punch has spent his first six months in a sheltered space, separate from the rest of the zoo’s macaque troop. In January, though, he was finally deemed ready to join the other monkeys in their shared habitat, which has also given visitors their first opportunities to see the little guy and his substitute mommy.

▼ Punch’s name, by the way, is a reference to manga artist and Lupin III creator Monkey Punch.

Though he’s still got some shades of timidness, the zookeepers say that Punch has been increasingly socializing with the other macaques, and have been posting videos of his progress integrating into the group.

Ichikawa is situated with Tokyo directly to its west and the city of Funabashi to its east. Funabashi, it just so happens, is where Ikea Japan’s headquarters is located, and after hearing about how their plushie has haled Punch through some tough times, the company has donated several more stuffed animals to the zoo.

This actually isn’t the first time a monkey at the Ichikawa City Zoo has bonded with a stuffed animal. Another of its simian residents, Otome, was abandoned by her mother after being born in 2008, and subsequently would cuddle with a plushie of popular Japanese character Rilakkuma. Otome was later able to bond with other members of the zoo’s macaque troop and has since become a mother herself.

▼ Otome

Punch’s story and adorableness have resulted in a growing fanbase among people in Japan, who’re rooting for him to have a happy, healthy life from here on.

Related: Ichikawa City Zoo
Source: Chiba TV via Yahoo! Japan News, FNN Prime Online, Yomiuri Shimbun
Top image: Ikea
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