A baby Japanese macaque named Punch has gone viral for capturing hearts around the world — after his mother neglected him at birth and led him to find comfort in a stuffed monkey … but according to one expert we spoke to, he will eventually need a living, loving mom in his life.

We spoke with Michael Stern — a Harvard-trained primatologist with decades of experience studying gorillas both in captivity and in the wild in Uganda — who tells us every primate needs something to love when they’re a baby, and they need to be loved … just like us humans!

Sterns tells us it’s been scientifically proven that just about every mammal out there has the same basic emotions as a human, and every baby needs something to put that loving emotion toward … he says, “To me, it’s kind of sad that what he had was this stuffed animal.”

Michael tells us … “I think people are right to feel a little bit sad when they see him running to a stuffed animal for for comfort” but that it’s actually beneficial to him that he is in the midst of a big troop of other monkeys and — according to Stern — he thinks as Punch grows up, he will be able to integrate himself into the social atmosphere.

In terms of people online like Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan, who have publicly offered to buy Punch off of the zoo, Stern tells us it’s not necessarily the zoo’s fault, but there are some ways these folks can put their money where their mouth is.

Stern calls to Punch’s fans to remember when you watch these videos online — that might just be a minute of either happiness or sadness — for the animals, that’s their entire life and we must do our part to support our animal buddies.

The ape expert points out if you look at the video, these monkeys are living on concrete and don’t really have that much grass or any real trees to climb. So the folks who are saying we should buy them out and rescue them, maybe they should be thinking bigger picture.