Officials in rural South Carolina say the female rhesus monkeys escaped into the wild after their pen was left open.

Police say residents of Yemassee, South Carolina, should keep their doors and windows locked until the primates are found.

Residents have been warned to lock windows and doors after 43 monkeys escaped from a research facility in South Carolina. The troupe of female monkeys burst out of an Alpha Genesis building in Yemassee on Wednesday after a caretaker ‘failed to secure doors’,