A pair of white-belted ruffed lemurs - a species critically endangered in the wild - have arrived at Chester Zoo in a bid to help save them from extinction.

The playful pair, named Andry and Loky, arrived at Chester after they were carefully matched up by conservationists.

The lemurs, which can only be found on the island of Madagascar, are one of the world’s rarest primates and their numbers have seen a sharp decline in recent years.

Habitat destruction in the form of agriculture, logging, mining and hunting pressures have seen the population of lemurs fall by more than 80% in the last 21 years.

As a result, the lemurs are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of threatened species.

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