Watch a Two-Day-Old Baby Monkey Take Its Very First Steps

A baby monkey only two days old pushes itself up onto all fours and tries out its very first steps, wobbling across a bed of dry leaves while its mother and the rest of the troop stay close. That’s the whole story of this footage, and it’s a lot more delicate than it sounds.

At this age, the baby’s fur is still thin and pale, with bright pink skin showing through on its face, ears, and hands. Its eyes look huge for its head — that dark, startled look is normal for a newborn primate still figuring out how far away the ground is.

What does a newborn baby monkey look like?

In the footage, the infant is small enough to fit in two cupped hands, with long thin fingers and toes tipped in tiny pink nails. It braces itself against a rock and a scatter of dead leaves and twigs, testing its grip before pushing forward. Every movement looks unsteady, the kind of first-step wobble you’d expect from something this young.

Is the mother watching nearby?

Yes. Other adults from the troop sit just a few feet away, and at one point one of them grooms another while the baby sits between them on the leaf litter. The grown monkeys’ calm, unhurried body language suggests the baby is in familiar company, not out exploring alone.

Where was this filmed?

The scene plays out on open ground littered with dry leaves, twigs, and a few scattered rocks, with patches of green ground cover visible at the edges — typical of the kind of forest floor these troops move through daily.

It’s a short window into a life that’s only just started, told simply, one shaky step at a time.