This is the heart-warming moment 29-year-old chimpanzee Vanilla explodes with joy  as she sees the sky for the first time after being caged her entire life.

Adorable footage shows Vanilla as she is encouraged by alpha male Dwight to step outside into the open and is captured gawping at the sky in awe. This was the emotional first time the 29-year-old had been outside of a 5ft cage or enclosure. 

After living in an experimental New York lab until she was two, Vanilla stayed in an enclosure where she was unable to see the sky clearly through the fenced roof in a Californian rescue facility.

Then she was moved to the Save the Chimps sanctuary in Fort Pierce, Florida. 

Here, Vanilla is welcomed with a hug from Dwight as soon as she steps into the sanctuary, where she will live with 18 other primates. She looks overjoyed as she is greeted with open arms.

And as more of her primate housemates come over to greet her, she continues to look at the sky in disbelief.

The video also shows her joyfully running around the three-acre island and sitting with her new family, who were grooming each other. 

The video was taken by Save the Chimps' primatologist Dr Andrew Halloran, who told the New York Post: 'In California, Vanilla lived with a handful of chimps inside a chain-link fence cage with no grass and very little enrichment.'

Dr Halloran said that when Vanilla is not exploring her island with the other chimpanzees, she sits on top of a three-storey climbing platform overlooking her new world.