Here is the story of Benjamin, a somewhat softie and sometimes confused baboon who conjured up courage from somewhere inside him -- or, as would be said in scientific circles, showed the dim beginnings of genetically-based altruism that extended beyond strictly family boundaries:

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Another event during that period would have been extraordinary with anyone as the protagonist, but was made even more so since it involved an astonishing display of heroism on the part of the unlikely Benjamin. It was mid-afternoon and the baboons were lollygagging along. Hot as hell, the time of day when predators were most likely sleeping, and everyone's guard was down.

The troop came over the top of a streambed and barreled right into a semi-dozing lion. Chaos, screaming, everyone scattering every which way, as the lion leapt up. The big males, naturally, did their thing, which was to high-tail it up the safest trees around. The females, in contrast, sprinted to grab their offspring before heading for the trees. The lion was acting somewhat like a kid in a candy store, starring to sprint after one animal, changing her mind and starting in another direction, overwhelmed by choices. The net result was that she managed to grab no one and stood in the middle of the field, exhaling in exasperation, surrounded by a troop of screaming, treed baboons.

Then all of us -- the lion, the baboons, and I -- noticed the two kids. They were yearlings, off on the edge, who had climbed up a tiny sapling of a tree, one that bent nearly horizontal within about five feet of the ground, one that would deter a lion for about ten seconds. They were the offspring of Afghan and Miriam, and both moms had been cut off at the opposite end, the lion between them and their kids. General panic and hysteria, as the lion began toward the sapling.

Now, the outdated primatology textbooks would go on about how the alpha male would now come to the rescue, as per his job description. And, as I've noted, what actually happens is that a genetic self-interest holds sway -- someone will usually do something self-sacrificial only if it involves saving close kin, saving someone who shares lots of genes with them. Tough luck for these two, neither had a really obvious father who had been claiming them -- in contrast to the paternalism of, say, Joshua, for Obadiah, Ruth's child from their adolescent dalliance. Most of the big males wahooed their heads off at the excitement of having a good view of what was going to happen next, the females were alarm calling,

Afghan and Miriam were running up and. down the trees frantically, when, from out of nowhere, Benjamin comes tear-assing in. If during his brief reign as the alpha male he had shown how little he understood modern evolutionary thinking by trying to kidnap the adult Devorah against the menacing Menasseh, now he was showing a similar lack of scholarship -- there was no way in hell either of these kids was his. But he comes roaring in, yelling, threat-grunting, gets to the base of the sapling before the lion, and plants himself there.

The lion approaches, Benjamin begins snarling and lunging, canines bared. I'm horrified, stunned, mesmerized -- as is everyone else. The lion approaches, Benjamin begins to back up the tree, and you can basically see him will himself forward again. He could jump down and run to safety in a second, but he lunges forward, snarling like a lunatic. And it's working. The lion has stopped, now about five feet away, flinching each time Benjamin lunges. She tenses for a spring, lifts a paw . . . and paws at the ground a second and then walks off.

Screw it with this crazy baboon in my face, and she returns to where she'd been napping. The two kids run down the tree to their moms.

I'm not sure what I was expecting next. That Miriam and Afghan would groom Benjamin for the rest of time, or at least organize a parade for him. That all the guys would slap him on the back. Everyone continues alarm calling at the lion for a while and then abruptly returns to feeding, while Benjamin bounces around up in a tree, breaking branches in some form of agitated displacement. The rest of the day passes without incident.

From: "A Primate's Memoir: Love, death and baboons in East Africa" by Robert M Sapolsky (Jonathan Cape 2001)