An Essex zoo is to become home to the UK's only specimens of a rare African baboon.

A group of Gelada baboons is now leaving quarantine and taking up residence at Colchester Zoo.

The primates, which have distinctive long mantles of grey hair and pink chests, are only found in the wild in the mountains of Ethiopia.

The group in Colchester is part of a European breeding programme.

The zoo says the baboons are now acclimatising to their outdoor enclosure, called the Gelada Plateau.

The animals graze grass and cannot climb trees.

They are also considered less aggressive than other breeds of baboons, rarely baring their teeth.