The Colobus Connection / The American Scholar

Cover and full page illustration

“In the forest, there are myriad ways to die.” So writes anthropologist Dawn Starin, a heartfelt reminiscence of her years in a Gambian nature preserve. The object of Starin’s study was the western red colobus monkey, with several troops moving through a 260-square-foot section of forest. Working amid crocodiles and venomous snakes (cobras and puff adders among them) and observing the harsh violence of the natural world, Starin became captivated by the daily soap opera enacted by the monkeys, each one with a distinctive personality and set of traits. She watched them play, fight, eat, drink, and mate. Then one day, she encountered the lifeless corpse of her favorite colobus monkey. Starin’s subsequent epiphany was so profound, it affected her very understanding of primates and evolution. “I have written about these things before,” she tells us, "and I know that I will do so again. The memories continue to haunt me; I cannot leave them behind.”