A Weaver Ant Bites Baby Monkey Jemma While She Clings to Mom

A weaver ant climbs onto baby monkey Jemma’s face while she presses close against her mother’s belly, and for a few uncomfortable seconds the tiny orange insect is right beside her eye. The footage captures that exact moment, an everyday hazard of forest life for a newborn who cannot yet brush the bugs away herself.

Who is Jemma?

Jemma is a very young baby macaque, the kind of monkey found across parts of Southeast Asia in temple grounds, forests, and parks. In the early footage she looks only days or a few weeks old, with dark fuzzy hair on her head, pale pink skin on her face, and the wide, dark eyes typical of a newborn primate. She stays tucked against her mother’s fur almost the entire time, the way infant monkeys do for safety and warmth in their first weeks of life.

What happens when the ant appears?

A weaver ant, a common tree-dwelling ant known in the region for a sharp bite, ends up on Jemma’s face near her eye. Weaver ants are small, usually under half an inch (about 1 cm) long, but their bite can be sharp enough to startle even a grown person, let alone an infant monkey with no way to defend herself. The footage lingers on this close encounter, showing just how exposed a newborn is to the smallest threats in her environment.

What else does the footage show?

Later in the video, Jemma appears a bit older, sitting more upright near a wooden post with her mother close by, exploring her surroundings with the same watchful, curious expression. Other footage shows an adult macaque sharing an orange piece of fruit with several younger monkeys gathered around a stone ledge, a glimpse of the wider troop Jemma is growing up in. Together these scenes trace a small stretch of her early life, from vulnerable newborn to a slightly steadier infant finding her footing.