A man who made a monkey out of a hungry macaque on video has been attacked by animal lovers.
The cruel stunt – recorded by a tourist in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China – shows a couple pulled over in a car in a layby laughing and taunting the monkey with fruit and nuts.
In the footage -shared on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok – the monkey can see a juicy pear on the dashboard through the windscreen but cannot touch it.
One of the people inside the car holds up what seems to be a nut and laughs as they watch the monkey struggle desperately to get to it.
After many attempts, the frustrated macaque gives up and jumps off the car bonnet.
Local media identified the man in the car as Mr Zhang, who faced an explosion of online criticism for his cruel prank.
He later rushed to reassure people that he had given the fruit and the nuts over to the monkey after filming the video.
He said he just wanted to show the monkey that it should not try and take other people’s food and that afterwards, following his kind gesture, he had been left with nothing for him and his partner to eat.
It is unclear where the monkey was and whether it was a tourist attraction or simply a random monkey that had approached the car when the man stopped briefly.