The "once lonely life" of Nene was revitalized with the arrival of macaques babies. The adult monkey, Nene, living in a zoo in the eastern Turkish province of Malatya, has found company and "children" in 11 baby macaques rescued from smugglers. The baby macaques were seized from smugglers on the Turkish-Iranian border earlier this year and resettled at the zoo.

Nene, who was already caring for three formerly smuggled baby monkeys since June, has also adopted the newly arrived infants.

The zookeeper, Sami Altaş, told Anadolu Agency (AA) that Nene, 11, once lived alone for five years. "She raised the infants from Ağrı (province in eastern Türkiye), and they became familiar to her. Ten other baby monkeys arrived later on. Now all the baby monkeys are being raised by Nene," he said. The zoo keeper also noted three other species of monkeys – macaque, spider monkey and baboon – in the zoo.

Over 1,300 animals from 78 species are housed in the zoo, including lions, tigers, wolves, bears, llamas, kangaroos, gazelles and ostriches.