Runaway lemurs gave their caretakers the runaround at a zoo in Russia.

The tiny primates broke out of their enclosure at the Kazan Zoo and Botanical Garden in Tatarstan and refused to follow their keepers as they were being guided back inside.

Footage shows the first ring-tailed lemur slipping off the hand of a zookeeper. It ran behind the bushes and hid under the protected structure before three caretakers went to retrieve it.

However, the swift animal ran away and climbed railings before being spotted scaling the roof of one of the zoo buildings.

The loose lemurs appeared all over the zoo until they were eventually rounded up later in the day.

In the wild, ring-tailed lemurs are natural acrobats leaping through the jungle tree canopy of Madagascar, but they spend much of their time on the ground in family troops.

Their conservation status is currently listed as 'Endangered' on the IUCN Red List due to habitat loss and hunting.