Animals aren’t usually into helping each other out: it’s a dog eat dog world out there, we’re told, and every creature is out for themselves. In India, however, things appear to be a little different – as this amazing footage seems to reveal.

It shows a group of monkeys going about their daily business – presumably eating bananas and throwing their own poo at each other – until they notice that a leopard has managed to get itself stuck down a well.

Though they obviously would struggle to get the leopard out themselves (and would probably just end up as lunch if they did) their whooping and hollering manages to attract the attention of nearby humans who come over and save the stricken big cat from a slow death.

When the humans noticed that the leopard was stuck, a rescue operation was mounted that saw a ladder put down the well and eventually, the big cat freed from its predicament.

The incident happened last Monday in Sikar, a small town in the northeastern state of Rajasthan, around 300 kilometres from the capital, New Dehli.

The monkey were hanging around at the back of a temple in the city, while the humans were oblivious to the plight of the leopard – until its primate pals made a timely intervention to save its spotted bacon.

“The rescue operation lasted for nearly an hour. It is possible the leopard had fallen into the well at night while following prey. We were able to rescue the wild cat using a ladder.”

Of course, there is the minor issue of what you might do with a leopard once it had been freed. Being a leopard, it might well take a liking to one of the monkeys or worse, attack a villager.

Luckily, Ranger Singh Rathore explained that it simply did a runner, happy to be out and safe.

He said: “As soon as it came out of the well it ran towards the jungle. It didn’t attack any villager or domestic animal in the village.”

He said: “As soon as it came out of the well it ran towards the jungle. It didn’t attack any villager or domestic animal in the village.”