A distraught family of monkeys have been caught on camera grieving for a robotic "baby" monkey after it was "killed" during filming, the Metro reports.

The rare footage was captured by BBC’s Spy in the Wild, which had been using the robot to observe the langur monkeys’ habit of sharing babysitting duties.

The remote-control baby had been capturing footage in India when it was accidentally dropped from a height and was unable to move.

The animals can be seen comforting each other having seemingly mistaken the robot intruder for one of their own.

Series producer Matthew Gordon told the Express: "We felt this calm and silence coming over them.

"All the noise they were making at the beginning just went completely silent and then they hugged each other."

Spy in the WIld, which is set to air on BBC One on Thursday, January 12, also features a chimp adopting a pet kitten and robot crocodiles, orangutans, dogs, birds and tortoises.