In the ruthless hierarchy of the troop, a brutal act unfolded. A large, high-ranking female monkey—barren or having lost her own infant—spotted the newborn. The baby was the very picture of weakness, tiny and still slick from birth, clinging with eyes sealed shut. In a swift, violent motion, the big monkey lunged. She stole the infant right from its mother’s chest, ignoring the mother’s shrieks of protest and the infant’s sudden, terrified cry.
The mother fought desperately, but she was exhausted from birth and outmatched. The thief clutched the stolen newborn to her own belly and fled to a higher branch. What followed was a pitiful scene. The newborn, confused and weak, tried to root for milk, but the thief had none to give. The baby’s desperate cries were constant, a thin, reedy sound of hunger and confusion. It looked very pitiful, its limbs flailing weakly, searching for the comfort of its true mother.
The thief, motivated by a distorted maternal instinct, would groom the baby roughly but could not nourish it. The weakness in the infant grew by the hour. It became listless, its cries weakening. The real mother watched from a distance, her own calls turning from fury to what sounded like mournful grief, but she was powerless to reclaim her child against the stronger female.
This tragic stalemate often only ends in one of two ways in the wild: the infant succumbs to starvation and weakness, or a higher-ranking female intervenes. Sometimes, an elder matriarch, seeing the pitiful state of the stolen baby, will confront the thief. Using her authority, she may take the infant and return it to its true mother, or if the mother is gone, she may care for it herself.
For this weakness newborn baby monkey, stolen by a big monkey from her mom, the world became a cold, hungry, and confusing place in an instant. Its very pitiful state is a stark reminder of nature’s sometimes cruel social dynamics, where the drive to mother can become a death sentence for the most vulnerable, and survival hinges on the intervention of strength wielded with wisdom.
