Scientific Paradises

Astronomers have the Paranal observatory in Chile; physicists have Fermilab and CERN; complexity theorists have the Sante Fe Institute; neuroscientists have NSI. But what is there for behavioral researchers? As it turns out, a beautiful island in the Caribbean.

Cayo Santiago is a tiny island off the coast of Puerto Rico which contains 950 free-ranging rhesus macaque monkeys. Tourists are never allowed; in fact, to visit, you must apply to the directors of the island, who ensure that the rhesus population stays healthy. If you're allowed to visit the island, you can simply set up your experiment somewhere in the jungle, and interact directly with the roaming macaques.

The colony was founded in 1938 with 409 monkeys imported from Calcutta. Since then, the monkeys have freely reproduced and now live in several naturally-formed social groups (with the exception of a few loner males). There is a database of information on each individual in the population, as well as the lineage of each individual as identified through DNA fingerprinting techniques. Researchers have also collected extensive information on the social group membership, and maintain that birth/death records are accurate to within 2-weeks.

Current research on the island is being conducted by researchers from Harvard, Yale, Duke, NIH, University of Chicago and other institutions. Check out a video of the free-ranging monkey population here (sorry, spanish only).