CAYO SANTIAGO

'Cayo Santiago', also known as 'Monkey Island', is an uninhabited island, located at , 950 m southeast of ''Punta Santiago'', Humacao, Puerto Rico. It extends 600 m north-south and 400 m east-west, including the flat northeastern peninsula 'Cayo de los Algodones' which is connected to the main part only by a narrow sandy isthmus. On the west side is a shoal, ''Bajo Evelyn''. While the island is flat in the north, it reaches a height of 34.9 m 2.9 km southwest of the port, in a small rocky hill called ''El Morrillo'', which rises abruptly from the water and the lowland around it. The area of the island is 0.14 km² (139,179 m²: Block 2000, Census Block Group 2, Census tract 1801, Humacao Municipio, Puerto Rico), of which ''Cayo de los Algodones'' accounts for about 0.02 km². The island is part of ''Punta Santiago'' barrio of Humacao.
The island has a free ranging population of about 950 Rhesus monkeys. The monkeys are offspring of an original group of 409 monkeys imported from India that were used for scientific research in 1938. Today the island serves as a research center for the University of Puerto Rico (Caribbean Primate Research Center), the National Institutes of Health, and Harvard University. The station accommodates 11 researchers and technicians who take the short boat trip from Humacao on a daily basis and normally don't stay on the island.

Cayo Batata, the second island belonging to Humacao, is located 5.7 km to the southwest.

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External link

External link

★ University of Puerto Rico page

★ nautical description

★ 4:11 min. video about the monkeys on Cayo Santiago