Two of the rarest monkeys on the planet are being hand-reared at Devon's Paignton Zoo after being abandoned by their mother.

Paignton Zoo keeper Andrew Fry rescued the pied tamarin babies at birth when their mother started to show signs of neglecting them.

He hurried the new-borns - named Chewie and Padmé after the Star Wars characters - to the zoo’s state-of-the-art vet centre, where they were placed in a heated veterinary incubator.

The tiny monkeys are now receiving round-the-clock care and attention from their keepers.

They are being fed every two to four hours primarily by Andrew, while colleagues are sharing the task of taking the babies home at night.

Julian Chapman, Paignton Zoo: "Genetically it is important that we get youngsters from this pair and continue their bloodline."

At birth, Chewie weighed 53 grams and Padmé a mere 41 grams.

They were fed initially on glucose solution, then moved on to diluted baby formula, which was then increased to near normal strength after five days.

The round-the-clock care will go on for around six weeks. They spend all day in sight, smell and hearing of the adults, clinging to a small piece of carpet inside the incubator.

It is hoped that they will be reintroduced after six weeks. Night feeds will then stop, but they will still need milk feeds from the keepers for another few months.

Pied tamarins are the most endangered of all the Amazon primates and are classified as Critically Endangered in the IUCN Red Data Book listing, which means that they face an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild in the very near future.

In proportion to their body size, these tiny creatures have larger brains than humans.

Senior head mammal keeper Julian Chapman said: "Genetically it is important that we get youngsters from this pair and continue their bloodline.

"The species is critically endangered - every youngster is vital to the future of the species."

The pair's mother, Leia, came to Paignton Zoo from Belfast Zoo, while the father, named Jedi, came from Apenheul Primate Park in the Netherlands

Leia and Jedi are owned - as are all members of their species in captivity outside of Brazil - by the Brazilian government.