A family in south India has adopted a lost monkey, who became comfortable enough to go on motorbike rides with his human 'dad'.

The 'father', a man named Ganesh from Nagai district in Tamil Nadu, found Ram the monkey in his home but rapidly grew to like the little simian.

He commented: "Ram frightened everyone but was very comfortable in our house... it ate the biscuits that we gave it and became one of our family.

It also started to sit on my bike for visiting the nearby places and everyone in our area watched the same with excitement."

However the monkey has since been returned to the wild, as Ganesh felt that he could not keep Ram, adding: "Many dogs are here in our area and we are scared that these may harm the monkey, and so we decided to hand over Ram to the forest department employees."