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Heads up, before we start, this episode includes some vulgar language.

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Hey, shortwavers, science correspondent Katie Riddle here in the host chair, filling in for

Emily and Gina.

I confess, like much of the internet, maybe even some of you.

This week, I fell in love with an adorable

baby monkey. Footage of him is everywhere on the internet. He's often seen wandering around,

looking forlorn, hugging a big stuffed animal. His name is Punch. Punch lives in Ichikawa,

city zoo outside of Tokyo, Japan. After he was born,

he was abandoned by his mom. It's not clear why. Now he's just seven months old, so tiny,

so cute, so vulnerable. And I'm not the only one who feels this way. As the internet learned more about him, people got invested. I'm literally sobbing. Like, leave Punch alone. I don't understand. I don't know where Punch the monkey is, but I know where he's about to be. If I find him, he's coming home with me. Now, this message is for the other monkeys in the enclosure. You all need to stand down. Put me in that cage. There's so many things going on in this world for me to add on another problem. Let me just settle this right now. Put me in that cage. However, Shortwave is a science show, and I'm a science journalist. So I figured before we all board the punch train, we should talk to an actual monkey scientist.

Having worked with snow monkeys, they're assholes. I hope I can say that.

This is Lauren Robinson. She's a visiting assistant professor of psychology at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts.

Lauren says that while we as humans might be worried about poor punch, getting bullied and neglected, to some extent this is normal for this species.

Snow monkeys, they have what's called a strict hierarchy. So there is always someone at the top,

but someone always ends up at the bottom of the hierarchy, right?

It's a global spectacle for us, but in Japanese snow monkey land, this is just another day.

If we get mad at snow monkeys for being aggressive to each other, we might as well be mad at the rain for being what.

It's just who they are as a species.

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