Altruism Is Actually a Fantastic Survival Strategy

On a tiny island called Cayo Santiago off the coast of Puerto Rico exists a colony of about 1,800 rhesus macaques. Each weighing about 20 pounds and known for their sand-colored fluffy tails, the monkeys that inhabit this island today are descendants of those brought over by primatologist Clarence Carpenter in the late 1930s. Since then, they have helped primatologists, evolutionary biologists, and scientists of all kinds better understand primate behavior in a unique natural laboratory setting.

Neuroscientist Michael Platt is one of those lucky scientists who has been able to study them for over a decade, particularly with a focus on how their social environment affects their brains, how they make decisions, and the genetic underpinnings of their social behavior. When news broke in the fall of 2017 that Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm, was bound to make landfall, Platt and his colleagues were terrified. They worried about what this would mean for their research and the monkeys who had given so much to science.