FOUR baby primates have arrived at Purbeck rescue Monkey World.

The tiny infants are all at risk of extinction in the wild. Three have been born at the park, while one is an orphan and has been adopted into a group at the rescue.

Rare red-bullied guenons confiscated from a Lebanese airport have started a family.

Dr Alison Cronin, Monkey World director, said: "Mother Nia is doing a fantastic job, with a strong healthy baby as a result.

"She can often be seen taking her baby outside to enjoy the Dorset sunshine.

"Red-belled guenons are endemic to Benin and are not found anywhere else in the world – apart from Monkey World."

Dr Cronin rescued the guenons in 2016 after the creatures were hunted from the wild, smuggled from Benin to Ghana and then onto Beirut on a passenger plane.

In March, orphaned orangutan Hujan was brought to Dorset to grow up with others of his own kind. Hujan was born in Germany but was sent to Monkey World after he was rejected by other orangutans.

Now 18 months old, he has joined a group made up of one adult male, three adult females and a juvenile female.

Slow loris Bobbi Dazzler was just 34 grams when born. She is now seven months old.

Dr Cronin said: "Monkey World has five loris' at the park, all confiscated from the black market trades in Hong Kong, the Maldives and Lebanon.

"We were delighted when one of the females, Nicki, gave birth. However, the baby was underweight and didn’t suckle, so the Monkey World team stepped in to care for the tiny infant."

On March 23, woollen monkey Pacaja gave birth to a "beautiful baby girl", Dr Cronin said.

"The baby woolly monkey is the 22nd woolly monkey at the park, making Monkey World home to the largest population of healthy woolly monkeys in the world.

"These South American primates are prone to stress and high blood pressure and so are extremely difficult to keep and breed in captivity," she said.

Monkey World was founded in 1987. It aims to assist governments around the world to stop the smuggling of primates from the wild.