Rick On Theater readers no
doubt know that Jane Goodall, the chimpanzee primatologist, died on 1 October. When I was teaching writing at New York University,
one of our reading assignments was an excerpt from her 1971 book In the
Shadow of Man, and I decided to post that along with an obit as a tribute to
Dr. Goodall. In the out-take, Goodall
describes seeing one of the chimps, David Greybeard, use a blade of grass as a
scoop to get termites out of their nest, the observation that led her to determine
that chimpanzees make and use tools.
[I had taken biology in 9th grade (1962-63), and we’d learned the taxonomy of the biosphere, the phyla, genera, species, and so on of the plant and animal kingdoms. That included the principal definitions for each grouping. For Homo sapiens, that included the distinction of being the only animal that made and used tools. Reading the Goodall was the first I’d known that this was wrong.
[That and one other revelation has stayed with me ever since: that chimps learn new behavior and pass it along to the next generation. That was another thing that was supposed the be the province only of humans.
[Reading about Jane Goodall, you’re sure to encounter a number of words about various related fields of science. Though some of the names for these scientific specialists are heard or seen fairly often in newspapers and magazines and on the Internet, but others may be unfamiliar to some readers. I’ve picked out some of those in recent articles about Jane Goodall and written out definitions for them. Here’s the list:
• animal psychologist (also called ‘comparative psychologist’)
– a scientist who studies the behavior and mental processes of non-human
animals
• anthropologist – an expert in the scientific study
of Homo sapiens, that is human beings
• archaeologist (sometimes spelled ‘archaeologist’) – someone
who practices the study of the past by excavation and analysis of its material
remains
• biological anthropologist (also known as ‘physical
anthropologist’), a scientist concerned with the biological and behavioral
aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human
primates, particularly from an evolutionary perspective
• biologist – someone versed in the science of the study
of all life or living matter
• developmental psychologist – a scientist who studies
how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives
• ethologist – a person who studies animalian
behavior, especially that of nonhuman animals
• evolutionary biologist – a scientist working in the subfield
of biology concerned with the origin and descent of species and as their
evolution, multiplication, and diversity over time
• naturalist – an expert in natural history or the
study of plants and animals (not to be confused with ‘naturist,’ which is
another word for ‘nudist’); before the 20th century, ‘natural history’ meant
what we call ‘science’ today
• paleontologist – someone who studies the forms of
life existing in prehistoric or geologic times, especially as represented by
fossils
• paleoanthropologist (sometimes spelled ‘paleanthropologist’)
– a scientist who specializes in the scientific study of ancient human
remains
• primatologist – a specialist in the scientific study
of primates (the mammalian order that encompasses apes—including humans—monkeys,
lemurs, and other groups)
• zoologist – one who studies the part of biology
relating to the animal kingdom
[Goodall is also labeled an activist and a conservationist, but those aren’t scientific designations, and I think their senses are self-evident.]
“JANE GOODALL, WHO
REVEALED
by Keith Schneider
[The New York Times obituary of Dr. Goodall ran in the print edition on 2 October 2025. It was posted to the website as “Jane Goodall, Who Chronicled the Social Lives of Chimps, Dies at 91” on 1 October 2025 and updated on 2 October.]
Jane Goodall, one of the world’s most revered conservationists, who earned scientific stature and global celebrity by chronicling the distinctive behavior of wild chimpanzees in East Africa — primates that made and used tools, ate meat, held rain dances and engaged in organized warfare — died on Wednesday [1 October] in Los Angeles. She was 91.
Her death, while on a speaking tour, was confirmed by the Jane Goodall Institute, whose U.S. headquarters are in Washington, D.C. When not traveling widely, she lived in Bournemouth, on the south coast of England, in her childhood home.
Dr. Goodall was 29 in the summer of 1963 when National Geographic magazine published her 7,500-word, 37-page account [“My Life Among Wild Chimpanzees,” National Geographic Magazine, vol. 124, no. 2, Aug. 1963] of the lives of primates she had observed in the Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve in what is now Tanzania [then Tanganyika (until 1964)]. The National Geographic Society had been financially supporting her field studies there.
The article, with photographs by Hugo van Lawick [1937-2002], a Dutch wildlife photographer whom she later married [1964], also described Dr. Goodall’s struggles to overcome disease, predators and frustration as she tried to get close to the chimps, working from a primitive research station along the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika.
On the scientific merits alone, her discoveries about how wild chimpanzees raised their young, established leadership, socialized and communicated broke new ground and attracted immense attention and respect among researchers. Stephen Jay Gould [1941-2002], the evolutionary biologist and science historian, said her work with chimpanzees “represents one of the Western world’s great scientific achievements.”
On learning of Dr. Goodall’s documented evidence that humans were not the only creatures capable of making and using tools, Louis Leakey [1903-72], the paleoanthropologist and Dr. Goodall’s mentor, famously remarked, “Now we must redefine ‘tool,’ redefine ‘man,’ or accept chimpanzees as humans.”
Long before focus groups, message discipline and communications plans became crucial tools in advancing high-profile careers and alerting the world to significant discoveries in and outside of science, Dr. Goodall understood the benefits of being the principal narrator and star of her own story of discovery.
In articles and books, her lucid prose carried vivid descriptions, some lighthearted, of the numerous perils she encountered in the African rainforest — malaria, leopards, crocodiles, spitting cobras and deadly giant centipedes, to name a few. Her writing gained its widest attention in three more long articles in National Geographic in the 1960s and ’70s and in three well-received books, “My Friends, the Wild Chimpanzees” (1967), “In the Shadow of Man” (1971) and “Through a Window” (1990).
Dr. Goodall’s willingness to challenge scientific convention and shape the details of her research into a riveting adventure narrative about two primary subjects — the chimps and herself — turned her into a household name, in no small part thanks to the power of television.
Dr. Goodall’s gentle, knowledgeable demeanor and telegenic presence — set against the beautiful yet dangerous Gombe preserve and its playful and unpredictable primates — proved irresistible to the broadcast networks. In December 1965, CBS News aired a documentary of her work in prime time [“Miss Goodall and the Wild Chimpanzees,” National Geographic Specials, 22 Dec. 1965], the first in a long string of nationally and internationally televised special reports about the chimpanzees of Gombe and the courageous woman steadfastly chronicling what she called their “rich emotional life.”
In becoming one of the most famous scientists of the 20th century, Dr. Goodall also opened the door for more women in her largely male field as well as across all of science. Women, including Dian Fossey [1932-85; known for her study of the mountain gorilla], Biruté Galdikas [b. 1946; leading authority on orangutans], Cheryl Knott [b. ca. 1964; biological anthropologist; research focused on orangutan behavior and biology] and Penny Patterson [b. 1947; animal psychologist and developmental psychologist; co-founder of The Gorilla Foundation], came to dominate the field of primate behavior research.
Most of Dr. Goodall’s observations focused on several generations of a troop of 30 to 40 chimpanzees, the species genetically closest to humans. She named some of them — Flo, Fifi, David Greybeard — and grew to know each of them personally. She was particularly interested in their courtship, mating rituals, births and parenting.
Dr. Goodall was the first scientist to explain to the world that chimpanzee mothers are capable of giving birth only once every four and a half to six years, and that only one or two babies were produced each year by the Gombe Stream troop. She found that first-time mothers generally hid their babies from the adult males, prompting frantic displays by the males — leaping and hooting that could last five minutes. An experienced mother, however, she discovered, freely allowed males and other females to view her infant, satisfying their curiosity, in a far calmer introduction.
In her many articles, books and documentaries, Dr. Goodall explored similar signal moments in her own life. In March 1964, after a nearly yearlong courtship, she married Mr. van Lawick. Three years later, she gave birth to Hugo Eric Louis van Lawick [b. 1967], her only child, whom she nicknamed Grub.
But even there she drew connections to her work in the field. She explained that her parenting philosophy and strategy were based on skills and values that she had learned from the chimpanzees, particularly the sure-handed matriarch of the troop, whom she named Flo. Nevertheless, she kept Grub in a protective cage while she was in the forest with him: She feared that he might be killed and eaten by the chimps.
Dr. Goodall’s ability to weave scientific observation with the story of her own life produced a powerful drama filled with characters of all ages, sexes and species. She once told a scientific meeting that her work would have had far less resonance scientifically or emotionally if she had just referred to the proud and confident chimp known as David Greybeard by a number, as was the usual practice. [Goodall gives a brief explanation of this remark in her piece below.]
In the 1970s, Dr. Goodall began to spend less time observing chimpanzees and far more time seeking to protect them and their disappearing habitat. She made known her opposition to capturing wild chimpanzees for display in zoos or for medical research. And she traveled the world, drawing large audiences with a message of hope and confidence that the world would recognize the importance of preserving its natural resources.
The 1970s were also a period of upheaval in her personal life. In 1974, she divorced Mr. van Lawick and soon afterward married Derek Bryceson [1922-80; m. 1975], the director of national parks in Tanzania. He died of cancer in 1980, a time she later said was perhaps the most difficult of her life.
She established the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977. It evolved into one of the world’s largest nonprofit global research and conservation organizations, with offices in the United States and 24 other nations. Its Roots and Shoots program, launched in 1991, teaches young people about conservation in 75 countries.
In honor of her work, Tanzania in 1978 designated the Gombe Stream Reserve a national park. Dr. Goodall’s institute maintains a research station there that attracts students and scientists from around the world. In 2002, the United Nations named Dr. Goodall a Messenger of Peace, the U.N.’s highest honor for global citizenship.
Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall was born in London on April 4, 1934, and grew up in Bournemouth as the older of two girls of Margaret Myfanwe (Joseph) Goodall [1906-2000)], who was known as Vanne, and Mortimer Herbert Morris-Goodall [1907-2001]. [Myfanwe, a Welsh name, is pronounced muh-VAN-wee; Vanne is a known nickname derived from Myfanwe.]
Her mother was an author and novelist who wrote under the name Vanne Morris-Goodall. Her father was an engineer who raced cars for a time. The couple divorced after World War II. Vanne Goodall accompanied her daughter to the Gombe reserve at the start of Dr. Goodall’s famous study in 1960 and was a leading character in much of her daughter’s writing. [British authorities in Tanganyika had insisted Dr. Goodall have a companion with her in Gombe, so her 54-year-old mother went along.]
As a little girl, Jane adored Tarzan’s Jane, Dr. Doolittle and a little stuffed monkey doll, a gift from her father that she named Jubilee. [Smithsonian magazine reported that Goodall “often joked that Tarzan had married the wrong Jane.”] Indeed, in her public appearances, Dr. Goodall almost always described her scientific findings and her international renown as a fortunate convergence of her childhood love of animals and Africa with her inquisitive and adventurous nature.
[Goodall recounts the story of a time when she was about 4 and disappeared to a henhouse for hours to discover how chickens laid their eggs. She hid herself and remained still and quiet until a hen arrived, made a nest, and laid her egg right before little Jane. Then she ran home, unaware that her family had reported her missing to the police, and excitedly told her mother what she’d seen and learned. Goodall records that her mother sat down and listened to her tale of wonder and never scolded her for making her parents worry.]
In 1956, after finishing a course in secretarial school and taking several jobs in London, she received a letter from a friend whose family owned a farm near Nairobi, Kenya. The friend invited her to join her.
Dr. Goodall jumped at the opportunity. Booking passage on a freighter to Africa, she arrived in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, on her 23rd birthday. She was soon introduced to other expatriate Englishmen and women in Nairobi as well as to Dr. Leakey, at the time a prominent but not yet internationally renowned archaeologist.
[The territories of Kenya, Tanganyika, and Zanzibar were all longtime colonies or protectorates of the British Empire in the 1950s and early 1960s, when Goodall was first in Africa. Kenya gained its independence in 1963 and became the Republic of Kenya in 1964. Tanganyika became independent in 1961, declaring itself a republic in 1962. The archipelago of Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanganyika, was granted independence in 1963 and became a constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth under its sultan. In 1964, however, Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged and formed the United Republic of Tanzania.]
Seven weeks after her arrival, she began work as Dr. Leakey’s secretary and assistant. Dr. Goodall accompanied him that summer to the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, a three-day trip over trackless wilderness, where he was in the early phases of excavating early human remains. He often talked about his interest in stationing a researcher on Lake Tanganyika to study a troop of wild chimpanzees that lived there.
[The Olduvai Gorge, located in northern Tanzania, is one of the world’s most important paleoanthropological sites. Often called the “Cradle of Mankind,” the steep-sided ravine, approximately 30 miles (48 kilometers) long and up to 295 feet (90 meters) deep, holds some of the earliest evidence of human ancestors.
[The first excavations at Olduvai were in 1913, but the site s most famous for the groundbreaking discoveries made by the paleoanthropologist team of Louis and Mary Leakey. Their excavations led to findings that reshaped our understanding of human origins. They worked the site from 1931 to Louis Leakey’s death in 1972, then Mary Leakey (1913-96) carried on until 1983.]
Those discussions led to an agreement with Dr. Goodall that she would take on that mission. On July 14, 1960, accompanied by her mother, she arrived at Gombe, and three months later, she watched as the big, handsome adult male chimp she named David Greybeard did something no human had ever expected of an animal.
“He was squatting beside the red earth mound of a termite nest, and as I watched I saw him carefully push a long grass stem down into a hole in the mound,” she wrote. “After a moment he withdrew it and picked something from the end of it with his mouth. It was obvious that he was actually using a grass stem as a tool.” [See excerpt below.]
Recognizing the contributions she was making to science, the University of Cambridge accepted her into its doctoral program in 1961 without an undergraduate degree. She was awarded her doctorate in 1965.
Dr. Goodall wrote 32 books, 15 of them for children. In her last book, “The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times” (2021, with Douglas Abrams and Gail Hudson), she wrote of her optimism about the future of humankind.
It was a message she continued to spread in her frequent public speaking engagements around the world, traveling some 300 days a year into her last decades, according to her institute. When she died on Wednesday, she had been scheduled to speak to students in Pasadena, Calif., and to participate in a tree-planting ceremony in an area that had been ravaged by wildfires.
Her many awards include the National Geographic Society’s Hubbard Medal, presented in 1995, and the Templeton Prize, given in 2021. In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II named her a dame of the British Empire. In January, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honor, by President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
[The Hubbard Medal is awarded by NGS for distinction in exploration, discovery, and research. The Templeton Prize, administered by the John Templeton Foundation, is an annual award granted to a living person, in the estimation of the judges, “whose exemplary achievements advance Sir John Templeton's philanthropic vision: harnessing the power of the sciences to explore the deepest questions of the universe and humankind's place and purpose within it.”
[In the 1995 New Year Honours, Goodall was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) “for services to zoology,” and in the 2003 Birthday Honours, she was promoted to Dame Commander of the same Order (DBE) “for services to the environment and conservation.” The DBE is the highest rank of the order for women and allows her to be addressed as Dame Jane Goodall; the investiture was held at Buckingham Palace in 2004.]
She is survived by her son; her sister, Judy Waters; and three grandchildren.
In July 2022, Mattel released a Jane Goodall doll as part of its Barbie-branded Inspiring Women series. The doll, with blond hair and dressed in a tan field shirt and shorts, is made of recycled plastic. It honored the 62nd anniversary of Dr. Goodall’s first visit to the Gombe reserve.
“Since young girls began reading about my early life and my career with the chimps, many, many, many of them have told me that they went into conservation or animal behavior because of me,” Ms. Goodall once said in a CBS News interview. “I sincerely hope that it will help to create more interest and fascination in the natural world.”
[The interview with Jane Goodall was part of a segment on The Uplift, a weekly CBS News show that spotlights stories that inspire, motivate, and tug at your heartstrings, that aired on 12 July 2022. The interview was broadcast to coincide with the launch of the Dr. Jane Goodall Inspiring Women Barbie doll, which was announced by Mattel on the same date. The doll was released just before World Chimpanzee Day on 14 July 2022.]
Ash Wu contributed reporting.
[Keith Schneider, a nationally known environmental journalist and a former national correspondent for the New York Times, is senior editor and a columnist for Circle of Blue, a nonprofit news, information, and convening organization reporting on fresh water worldwide. His work has additionally appeared in Mongabay, a conservation news web portal that reports on environmental science, energy, and green design; The Guardian; and elsewhere.]
* *
* *
“FIRST
OBSERVATIONS”
by Jane van
Lawick-Goodall
[This excerpt from Goodall’s first book is Chapter 3 of In the Shadow of Man (Houghton, 1971).]
For about a month I spent most of each day either on the Peak or overlooking Mlinda Valley where the chimps, before or after stuffing themselves with figs, ate large quantities of small purple fruits that tasted, like so many of their foods, as bitter and astringent as sloes or crab apples. Piece by piece, I began to form my first somewhat crude picture of chimpanzee life.
The impression that I had gained when I watched the chimps at the msulula tree of temporary, constantly changing associations of individuals within the community was substantiated. Most often I saw small groups of four to eight moving about together. Sometimes I saw one or two chimpanzees leave such a group and wander off on their own or join up with a different association. On other occasions, I watched two or three small groups joining to form a larger one.
Often, as one group crossed the grassy ridge separating the Kasekela Valley from the fig trees in the home valley, the male chimpanzee, or chimpanzees, of the party would break into a run, sometimes moving in an upright position, sometimes dragging a fallen branch, sometimes stamping or slapping the hard earth. These charging displays were always accompanied by loud pant-hoots and afterward the chimpanzee frequently would swing up into a tree overlooking the valley he was about to enter and sit quietly, peering down and obviously listening for a response from below. If there were chimps feeding in the fig trees they nearly always hooted back, as though in answer. Then the new arrivals would hurry down the steep slope and, with more calling and screaming, the two groups would meet in the fig trees. When groups of females and youngsters with no males present joined other feeding chimpanzees, usually there was none of this excitement; the newcomers merely climbed up into the trees, greeted some of those already there, and began to stuff themselves with figs.
While many details of their social behavior were hidden from me by the foliage, I did get occasional fascinating glimpses. I saw one female, newly arrived in a group, hurry up to a big male and hold her hand toward him. Almost regally he reached out, clasped her hand in his, drew it toward him, and kissed it with his lips. I saw two adult males embrace each other in greeting. I saw youngsters having wild games through the treetops, chasing around after each other or jumping again and again, one after the other, from a branch to a springy bough below. I watched small infants dangling happily by themselves for minutes on end, patting at their toes with one hand, rotating gently from side to side. Once two tiny infants pulled on opposite ends of a twig in a gentle tug-of war. Often, during the heat of midday or after a long spell of feeding, I saw two or more adults grooming each other, carefully looking through the hair of their companions.
At that time of year the chimps usually went to bed late, making their nests when it was too dark to see properly through binoculars, but sometimes they nested earlier and I could watch them from the Peak. I found that every individual, except for infants who slept with their mothers, made his own nest each night. Generally this took about three minutes: the chimp chose a firm foundation such as an upright fork or crotch, or two horizontal branches. Then he reached out and bent over smaller branches onto this foundation, keeping each one in place with his feet. Finally he tucked in the small leafy twigs growing around the rim of his nest and lay down. Quite often a chimp sat up after a few minutes and picked a handful of leafy twigs, which he put under his head or some other part of his body before settling down again for the night. One young female I watched went on and on bending down branches until she had constructed a huge mound of greenery on which she finally curled up.
I climbed up into some of the nests after the chimpanzees had left them. Most of them were built in trees that for me were almost impossible to climb. I found that there was quite complicated interweaving of the branches in some of them. I found, too, that the nests were never fouled with dung; and later, when I was able to get closer to the chimps, I saw how they were always careful to defecate and urinate over the edge of their nests, even in the middle of the night. During that month I really came to know the country well, for I often went on expeditions from the Peak, sometimes to examine nests, more frequently to collect specimens of the chimpanzees’ food plants, which Bernard Verdcourt [1925-2011; biologist and taxonomist, most widely known as a botanist; before 1964, his best-known work probably consists of his many studies of the East African flora] had kindly offered to identify for me. Soon I could find my way around the sheer ravines and up and down the steep slopes of three valleys – the home valley, the Pocket, and Mlinda Valley – as well as a taxi driver finds his way about in the main streets and byways of London. It is a period I remember vividly, not only because I was beginning to accomplish something at last, but also because of the delight I felt in being completely by myself. For those who love to be alone with nature I need add nothing further; for those who do not, no words of mine could ever convey, even in part, the almost mystical awareness of beauty and eternity that accompanies certain treasured moments. And, though the beauty was always there, those moments came upon me unaware: when I was watching the pale flush preceding dawn; or looking up through the rustling leaves of some giant forest tree into the greens and browns and black shadows that occasionally ensnared a bright fleck of the blue sky; or when I stood, as darkness fell, with one hand on the still-warm trunk of a tree and looked at the sparkling of an early moon on the never still, sighing water of the lake.
One day, when I was sitting by the trickle of water in Buffalo Wood, pausing for a moment in the coolness before returning from a scramble in Mlinda Valley, I saw a female bushbuck [a common name for one several African antelopes] moving slowly along the nearly dry streambed. Occasionally she paused to pick off some plant and crunch it. I kept absolutely still, and she was not aware of my presence until she was little more than ten yards away. Suddenly she tensed and stood staring at me, one small forefoot raised. Because I did not move, she did not know what I was – only that my outline was somehow strange. I saw her velvet nostrils dilate as she sniffed the air, but I was downwind and her nose gave her no answer. Slowly she came closer, and closer – one step at a time, her neck craned forward – always poised for instant flight. I can still scarcely believe that her nose actually touched my knee; yet if I close my eyes I can feel again, in imagination, the warmth of her breath and the silken impact of her skin. Unexpectedly I blinked and she was gone in a flash, bounding away with loud barks of alarm until the vegetation hid her completely from my view.
It was rather different when, as I was sitting on the Peak, I saw a leopard coming toward me, his tail held up straight. He was at a slightly lower level than I, and obviously had no idea I was there. Ever since arrival in Africa I had had an ingrained, illogical fear of leopards. Already, while working at the Gombe, I had several times nearly turned back when, crawling through some thick undergrowth, I had suddenly smelled the rank smell of cat. I had forced myself on, telling myself that my fear was foolish, that only wounded leopards charged humans with savage ferocity.
On this occasion, though, the leopard went out of sight as it started to climb up the hill – the hill on the peak of which I sat. I quickly hastened to climb a tree, but halfway there I realized that leopards can climb trees. So I uttered a sort of halfhearted squawk. The leopard, my logical mind told me, would be just as frightened of me if he knew I was there. Sure enough, there was a thudding of startled feet and then silence. I returned to the Peak, but the feeling of unseen eyes watching me was too much. I decided to watch for the chimps in Mlinda Valley. And, when I returned to the Peak several hours later, there, on the very rock which had been my seat, was a neat pile of leopard dung. He must have watched me go and then, very carefully, examined the place where such a frightening creature had been and tried to exterminate my alien scent with his own.
As the weeks went by the chimpanzees became less and less afraid. Quite often when I was on one of my food-collecting expeditions I came across chimpanzees unexpectedly, and after a time I found that some of them would tolerate my presence provided they were in fairly thick forest and I sat still and did not try to move closer than sixty to eighty yards. And so, during my second month of watching from the Peak, when I saw a group settle down to feed I sometimes moved closer and was thus able to make more detailed observations.
It was at this time that I began to recognize a number of different individuals. As soon as I was sure of knowing a chimpanzee if I saw it again, I named it. Some scientists feel that animals should be labeled by numbers – that to name them is anthropomorphic – but I have always been interested in the differences between individuals, and a name is not only more individual than a number but also far easier to remember. Most names were simply those which, for some reason or other, seemed to suit the individuals to whom I attached them. A few chimps were named because some facial expression or mannerism reminded me of human acquaintances.
The easiest individual to recognize was old Mr. McGregor. The crown of his head, his neck, and his shoulders were almost entirely devoid of hair, but a slight frill remained around his head rather like a monk’s tonsure. He was an old male – perhaps between thirty and forty years of age (chimpanzees in captivity can live more than fifty years). During the early months of my acquaintance with him, Mr. McGregor was somewhat belligerent. If I accidentally came across him at close quarters he would threaten me with an upward and backward jerk of his head and a shaking of branches before climbing down and vanishing from my sight. He reminded me, for some reason, of Beatrix Potter’s old gardener in The Tale of Peter Rabbit.
[The average lifespan of a wild chimpanzee is relatively short, though captive chimpanzees tend to live longer than most wild ones, with median lifespans of 31.7 years for males and 38.7 years for females. Wild chimps usually live less than 15 years, although individuals that reach 12 years may live an additional 15 years. On rare occasions, wild chimpanzees may live nearly 60 years.]
Ancient Flo with her deformed, bulbous nose and ragged ears was equally easy to recognize. Her youngest offspring at that time were two-year-old Fifi, who still rode everywhere on her mother’s back, and her juvenile son, Figan, who was always to be seen wandering around with his mother and little sister. He was then about seven years old; it was approximately a year before he would attain puberty. Flo often traveled with another old mother, Olly. Olly’s long face was also distinctive; the fluff of hair on the back of her head – though no other feature – reminded me of my aunt, Olwen. Olly, like Flo, was accompanied by two children, a daughter younger than Fifi, and an adolescent son about a year older than Figan.
Then there was William, who, I am certain, must have been Olly’s blood brother. I never saw any special signs of friendship between them, but their faces were amazingly alike. They both had long upper lips that wobbled when they suddenly turned their heads. William had the added distinction of several thin, deeply etched scar marks running down his upper lip from his nose.
Two of the other chimpanzees I knew well by sight at that time were David Greybeard and Goliath. Like David and Goliath in the Bible, these two individuals were closely associated in my mind because they were very often together. Goliath, even in those days of his prime, was not a giant, but he had a splendid physique and the springy movements of an athlete. He probably weighed about one hundred pounds. David Graybeard was less afraid of me from the start than were any of the other chimps I was always pleased when I picked out his handsome face and well-marked silvery beard in a chimpanzee group, for with David to calm the others, I had a better chance of approaching to observe them more closely.
Before the end of my trial period in the field I made two really exciting discoveries – discoveries that made the previous months of frustration well worth while. And for both of them I had David Graybeard to thank.
One day I arrived on the Peak and found a small group of chimps just below me in the upper branches of a thick tree. As I watched I saw that one of them was holding a pink-looking object from which he was from time to time pulling pieces with his teeth. There was a female and a youngster and they were both reaching out toward the male, their hands actually touching his mouth. Presently the female picked up a piece of the pink thing and put it to her mouth: it was at this moment that I realized the chimps were eating meat.
After each bite of meat the male picked off some leaves with his lips and chewed them with the flesh. Often, when he had chewed for several minutes on this leafy wad, he spat out the remains into the waiting hands of the female. Suddenly he dropped a small piece of meat, and like a flash the youngster swung after it to the ground. Even as he reached to pick it up the undergrowth exploded and an adult bushpig [member of the pig family that inhabits forests, woodland, riverine vegetation, and cultivated areas in East and Southern Africa.] charged toward him. Screaming, the juvenile leaped back into the tree. The pig remained in the open, snorting and moving backward and forward. Soon I made out the shapes of three small striped piglets. Obviously the chimps were eating a baby pig. The size was right and later, when I realized that the male was David Graybeard, I moved closer and saw that he was indeed eating a piglet.
For three hours I watched the chimps feeding. David occasionally let the female bite pieces from the carcass and once he actually detached a small piece of flesh and placed it in her outstretched hand. When he finally climbed down there was still meat left on the carcass; he carried it away in one hand, followed by the others.
Of course I was not sure, then, that David Graybeard had caught the pig himself, but even so, it was tremendously exciting to know that these chimpanzees actually ate meat. Previously scientists had believed that although these apes might occasionally supplement their diet with a few insects or small rodents and the like they were primarily vegetarians and fruit eaters. No one had suspected that they might hunt larger mammals.
It was within two weeks of this observation that I saw something that excited me even more. By then it was October and the short rains had begun. The blackened slopes were softened by feathery new grass shoots and in some places the ground was carpeted by a variety of flowers. The Chimpanzees’ Spring, I called it. I had had a frustrating morning, tramping up and down three valleys with never a sign or sound of a chimpanzee. Hauling myself up the steep slope of Mlinda Valley I headed for the Peak, not only weary but soaking wet from crawling through dense undergrowth. Suddenly I stopped, for I saw a slight movement in the long grass about sixty yards away. Quickly focusing my binoculars I saw that it was a single chimpanzee, and just then he turned in my direction. I recognized David Graybeard.
Cautiously I moved around so that I could see what he was doing. He was squatting beside the red earth mound of a termite nest, and as I watched I saw him carefully push a long grass stem down into a hole in the mound. After a moment he withdrew it and picked something from the end with his mouth. I was too far away to make out what he was eating, but it was obvious that he was actually using a grass stem as a tool.
I knew that on two occasions casual observers in West Africa had seen chimpanzees using objects as tools: one had broken open palm-nut kernels by using a rock as a hammer, and a group of chimps had been observed pushing sticks into an underground bee’s nest and licking off the honey. Somehow I had never dreamed of seeing anything so exciting myself.
For an hour David feasted at the termite mound and then he wandered slowly away. When I was sure he had gone I went over to examine the mound. I found a few crushed insects strewn about, and a swarm of worker termites sealing the entrances of the nest passages into which David had obviously been poking his stems. I picked up one of his discarded tools and carefully pushed it into a hole myself. Immediately I felt the pull of several termites as they seized the grass, and when I pulled it out there were a number of worker termites and a few soldiers, with big red heads, clinging on with their mandibles. There they remained, sticking out at right angles to the stem with their legs waving in the air.
Before I left I trampled down some of the tall dry grass and constructed a rough hide – just a few palm fronds leaned up against the low branch of a tree and tied together at the top. I planned to wait there the next day. But it was another week before I was able to watch a chimpanzee “fishing” for termites again. Twice chimps arrived, but each time they saw me and moved off immediately. Once a swarm of fertile winged termites – the princes and princesses, as they are called – flew off on their nuptial flight, their huge white wings fluttering frantically as they carried the insects higher and higher. Later I realized that it is at this time of year, during the short rains, when the worker termites extend the passages of the nest to the surface, preparing for these emigrations. Several such swarms emerge between October and January. It is primarily during these months that the chimpanzees feed on termites.
On the eighth day of my watch David Graybeard arrived again, together with Goliath, and the pair worked there for two hours. I could see much better: I observed how they scratched open the sealed-over passage entrances with a thumb or forefinger. I watched how they bit the ends off their tools when they became bent, or used the other end, or discarded them in favor of new ones. Goliath once moved at least fifteen yards from the heap to select a firm-looking piece of vine, and both males often picked three or four stems while they were collecting tools, and put the spares beside them on the ground until they wanted them.
Most exciting of all, on several occasions they picked small leafy twigs and prepared them for use by stripping off the leaves. This was the first recorded example of a wild animal not merely using an object as a tool, but actually modifying an object and thus showing the crude beginnings of toolmaking.
Previously man had been regarded as the only tool-making animal. Indeed, one of the clauses commonly accepted in the definition of man was that he was a creature who “made tools to a regular and set pattern.” The chimpanzees, obviously, had not made tools to any set pattern. Nevertheless, my early observations of their primitive toolmaking abilities convinced a number of scientists that it was necessary to redefine man in a more complex manner than before. Or else, as Louis Leakey put it, we should by definition have to accept the chimpanzee as Man.
[Among those chimpanzees whom Goodall named during her years in Gombe were:
• David Greybeard, a grey-chinned male who first warmed
up to Goodall
[There was also one thing
that Goodall showed—not in this excerpt—that was not a revelation to me, however. She discovered that each chimp has a specific,
individual. personality. How could you
have a pet, say a dog, and not see a distinct personality? If you've had more than one dog, for
instance, it's soon obvious that one dog has a different personality than the
other.]
