Cayo Santiago, also known as Santiago Island, Isla de los monos (or Island of the monkeys), is located at , to the east of ''Punta Santiago'',

Humacao Humacao () is a city and municipality in Puerto Rico located in the eastern coast of the island, north of Yabucoa; south of Naguabo; east of Las Piedras; and west of Vieques Passage. Humacao is spread over 12 barrios and Humacao Pueblo (the ...

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...

Geography

The island measures approximately , north–south and east–west, including a "Small Key" which is connected to the main part ("Big Key") by a narrow sandy

isthmus An isthmus (; ; ) is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, and a strait is the sea counterpart of an isthmus ...

. Six hundred meters west of the southernmost point is a shoal, ''Bajo Evelyn'', which has a shallow depth of 8 fathoms. While the island is flat in the north, it reaches a height of , southwest of the island's port, on a small rocky hill called ''El Morrillo'', which rises abruptly from the water and the lowland around it. The area of the island is :

Block Block or blocked may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Block programming, the result of a programming strategy in broadcasting * W242BX, a radio station licensed to Greenville, South Carolina, United States known as ''96.3 ...

2000,

Census Block Group A Census Block Group is a geographical unit used by the United States Census Bureau which is between the Census Tract and the Census Block. It is the smallest geographical unit for which the bureau publishes sample data, i.e. data which is only col ...

2, Census tract 1801, Humacao Municipio, Puerto Rico), of which the northeastern peninsula accounts for about . In the late 1940s, the island was expropriated by Puerto Rico from its private owners and ceded to the University of Puerto Rico. Only researchers are allowed on the island, but tourists can charter a boat to view the island and its primate inhabitants.

Resident Taxa

Since December 1938, the island has been home to a free-ranging population of

rhesus macaques The rhesus macaque (''Macaca mulatta''), colloquially rhesus monkey, is a species of Old World monkey. There are between six and nine recognised subspecies that are split between two groups, the Chinese-derived and the Indian-derived. Generally ...

. Today, the island is inhabited by descendants of the original founder population of 409 individuals. Founder individuals were imported from

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

by Clarence R. Carpenter and the School of Tropical Medicine in San Juan that was operated by

Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S) is the graduate medical school of Columbia University, located at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Founded ...

and the University of Puerto Rico. Today, the colony, which numbers over one thousand animals, serves as a research resource supported by the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

and the

University of Puerto Rico The University of Puerto Rico ( es, Universidad de Puerto Rico, UPR) is the main public university system in the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It is a government-owned corporation with 11 campuses and approximately 58,000 students and 5,3 ...

Caribbean Primate Research Center for investigators from many institutions in the US and several in Europe. A pictorial history on the 75 years of the colony was recently published. Cayo Batata, a small island located to the southwest of Cayo Santiago, is under the jurisdiction of

and is uninhabited by humans.

Gallery

File:Cayo Santiago-chart.png, Nautical Chart of Cayo Santiago area File:Cayo Santiago.png, Census Bureau Map File:Shy monkey at Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico.png, Shy monkey at Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico File:Monkey on Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico.jpg, A monkey walks on the beach of Cayo Santiago

References

External links

Cayo Santiago & The Origins NIH NPRC Program with Hurricane Maria of 9/20/2017 updateVideo about the monkeys on Cayo SantiagoCaribbean Primate Research CenterPrimate Research Center
{{Authority control Humacao, Puerto Rico Uninhabited islands of Puerto Rico