A little girl believed to be eight-years-old has reportedly been rescued from a troop of monkeys in Uttar Pradesh, northern India.
The Times of India writes the apparently feral child cannot speak, does not appear to understand language and walks on her hands and feet.
It adds that she and the monkeys responded to sub-inspector Suresh Yadav’s initial attempts to rescue her by screeching.
The girl, who was spotted in Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary, was eventually safely captured has been admitted to a district hospital.
Chief Medical Officer D K Singh told One India: “The girl was found two months ago, eats and walks like an animal and runs away on seeing humans.
“She has marks on her skin, looks like she has lived with animals for quite some time. Now she is better and healthy, showing improvement.”
Media outlets are drawing comparisons between the girl and Mowgli, a fictional character and protagonist from Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book series.
Lost by his parents as a baby in the Indian Jungle, Mowgli was raised and nurtured by animals.
In 2016, The Indian Express published an essay exploring incidents of “feral children” in the country, many of which were found to be hoaxes.
It cites some of the more “credible” earlier accounts of wolf children as coming from British soldier-administrator Sir William Henry Sleeman in 1851.
In Roman mythology, twin brothers Romulus and Remus were abandoned on a riverbank, only to be saved by and suckled by a she-wolf. According to legend, they went on to found Rome.