As stories about a Chinese zoo keeper licking a monkey's butt in order to save its life go, this one from chinaSMACK is by far the most endearing.

After a young Francois' leaf monkey in his care consumed a peanut that had been tossed into its enclosure, Wuhan Zoo employee Zhang Bangsheng noticed that the animal had become dangerously constipated.

Being too big to pass through the monkey's system naturally, the peanut had to be extracted manually. Apparently, that meant licking it out.

Zhang told local reporters the three-month-old lutung was too small for laxatives, so he had no choice but to extract the wayward legume with his lingua. After washing the its bottom with warm water (because not doing so would be disgusting), Zhang spent an hour polishing the monkey's pooper before the peanut finally popped out.

What became of it is up to your filthy imagination, but chinaSMACK says the caretaker subsequently "laughed with satisfaction."

[photo via chinaSMACK via Quirkies]