I enjoyed watching two troops of free-ranging monkeys this summer for many of the same reasons that I enjoy Gossip Girl. As I settled into my “job” observing Rhesus macaque social interactions on a small island off of Puerto Rico, at times I felt like I was watching another set of primates on an island some fifteen hundred miles to the north. The backstabbing, sycophancy, lust, sex, status-seeking – Cayo Santiago looked a lot like the CW's rendition of high school on the Upper East Side. (Disclaimer: My former girlfriend made me watch the first two episodes. Full disclosure: I made her watch the next ten.)

Most of the drama was as petty as the plot lines on Gossip Girl. A high-ranking female picks on the younger, lower-ranking, prettier female. In response to an annoying, low-ranking male, a conniving female woos a higher-ranking male to fend him off. Two juveniles awkwardly engage in, as the primatologists say, “consort.” Yawn. But in my last week, the monkeys showed me that they had the capacity for the epic.

I was munching on a mid-morning snack in the fenced-off “lunch corral” for researchers. A South African researcher bounded to the corral as quickly as she could, her boots clunking in the mid-summer Puerto Rican heat. Out of breath, she exclaimed, “The King is dead! The King is dead!” There were six groups of monkeys on the island, each between 80 and 200 members. Generally, in rhesus monkeys, alpha males reign for a handful of months and are quickly dethroned by another young, vigorous male. But K76, “the King”, had managed to rule troop K with fear and intimidation for more than three years. Until that day.

That morning had been typical. Troop K was perched on its usual hill. Friends and family laid around together, grooming and napping. They went to get food and water from the food corral where the research station planted the monkey chow. (Fun fact: Purina also makes monkey chow.) They went back to their hill. The troop laid around some more – again, grooming and napping.

After a while, K76 moseyed over to the waterhole. Three younger, high-ranking males, all brothers, loitered in the clearing where the waterhole was. K76 marched on through, as he had for years, expecting them to move out of the King's way. Instead, the three brothers lunged at him. They bit K76 with their two-inch canines and slashed him with their nails. The King fled. He ran down their usual hill and ran up a tree. Monkey fights weren't rare and they usually ended in some fashion like this. But the three brothers chased him out of the tree and down to the beach. The brothers closed in on him. I like to think that the brothers knew how powerful K76 was, and they knew that if they were going to dethrone him, they had to kill him. I also like to think that K76 realized this, and for that reason he did something that no monkey had done the entire summer – he dove into the water and swam away from shore.

The three brothers hoo-ed, thumped the ground, and bobbed their heads with their mouths open – all standard aggressive macaque behaviors. K76 treaded water for a few minutes until the brothers seemed to wear themselves out and retreated from the beach. K76 swam into the shore, but just as he was about to step onto the beach, one of the brothers saw him and sprinted from the clearing above. The two others followed him, hoo-ing, screaming, and flashing their teeth. K76 swam back out from shore again and treaded water until they retreated. The King tried another beach. The brothers chased him off that one as well. And so it went for the rest of the afternoon at the beaches all around the small island. K76 would try to land, and the three brothers would chase him off.

The next day, none of the researchers saw K76. The day after, no one saw him either. We assumed he was dead. Then, three days after the attempted regicide, as if the story wasn't epic enough already, one of the research center's maintenance workers stumbled across K76 hiding in a cave beneath the cliff. He was extremely weak, but still alive. The King lives!

I left the research center the next day and never found out what happened to K76 and the three brothers. I like to think that he rejoined the group as a low-ranking male. Then I fill in the rest of the story with details from Gladiator.

* * *

The monkeys engaged humans as another social entity. Once in the macaque “dominance-centric” worldview, we had to stand our ground if they challenged us and threaten them with a rock if they didn't back down. The monkeys aren't large – perhaps 25-30 pounds – but I gulped the first time a high-ranking male stared into my eyes, bobbed his head with his mouth open, slapped the ground, and bared his canines. He saw my hesitation and kept going. I gulped again, then puffed my chest, raised my arms, and started trash talking as best as a suburban kid in a baby-blue collared shirt could. Whether as a consequence of verbal wounds or physical intimidation by something six times his size, the male retreated. I felt primal. I felt good. I felt dominant.

Some other researchers didn't fare so well. On one of her first days there, a girl from Harvard ran away from 55J, a blustering, low-ranking young male with oversized canines. Apparently Cayo Santiago is a lot like prison (or at least a lot like prison in Half Baked) – you either have to kick someone's ass the first day or become their bitch. From that day forward, as soon as 55J saw this poor girl, he would sprint at her, lengthy canines bared. As a result, she had to avoid a large chunk of the island. She was never in physical danger – no human had been bitten on the island for years – but she was plenty scared and plenty teased by fellow researchers.

Social interactions weren't just limited to fights – we also named the monkeys. I originally named them as a mnemonic aide (have you ever tried to distinguish 65 different monkeys?!), but it quickly turned into a game. I named most of them after my friends. The only problem: the monkeys spend most of their time beating each other up, so the majority of the distinguishing traits were gross physical abnormalities – a missing patch of fur, a crooked tail, a missing lip, or, my personal favorite, a reversed penis (apparently, in a particularly nasty fight, the opposing monkey had slashed the victim's genitalia in a way that, when it healed, it faced in a backward rather than forward direction). How do you tell your friend that an emaciated, low-ranking, frazzle-tailed, perpetually-scared female reminded you of him? Or another that a cross-eyed, open-mouthed oaf brought back fond memories? Or that the male that creepily watches the couples in “consort” reminds you of your celibate-but-not-by-choice fraternity brother? Here's how: you don't. I guess I could have told Nelly that I named the monkey with a large, Band Aid-sized scar on her cheek after him, but I'm not that tight with the St. Louis rap scene. So it goes.

* * *

I didn't have a TV while I was in Puerto Rico, but I didn't need one. These monkeys had rich social and emotional lives. With the macaques around, who needs Gossip Girl? Over the course of the summer, I saw that we humans share – either through homology or analogy – a similar social and emotional core with macaques. V78, the meanest meanest monkey in troop KK, showed me this best. She was the most dominant female in the troop, and she seemed like a miserable monkey – she was ugly and old, red-faced and wrinkled. She was that crotchety old neighbor who yelled at the eight-year-old-you when you played manhunt in her yard. I didn't like V78 much.

Then, one morning, I saw her clutching something to her chest. I walked toward her. Uncharacteristically, she ran twenty yards away, separating herself from the group. I walked slowly toward her again. Then I saw it – the limp, too-skinny body of a stillborn. For the next three days, she didn't let go of that small body. I couldn't help but watch this drama unfold – and I couldn't help but feel a deep sympathy for my fellow primate.