Carpenter, C. R. (1905–1975)

Stuart A. Altmann

During the 1930s, C. Ray Carpenter carried out the first modern studies of free-ranging primates. In its scope, duration, systematic data collection, and revelations about the naturalistic behavior of primates, his research went far beyond all previous studies, such as those by Bingham, Nissen, Zuckerman, and Marais. Although his 1931 doctoral dissertation was on the behavior of pigeons in captivity, he immediately switched to field research on free-ranging primates. Over the next decade, in Central America, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean, he carried out landmark field studies of howler monkeys, spider monkeys, gibbons, and rhesus macaques. The rhesus were on Cayo Santiago, a small island off Puerto Rico, in a colony established in the late 1930s with monkeys that Carpenter shipped from India. In the years since then, that colony has been the subject of research by many scientists. After completing his doctorate with Calvin Stone at Stanford (1931), Carpenter ...

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