Jane Goodall

Biography

Meeting the Chimps


Flo using a tool to fish termites. One of Dr. Goodall's first major discoveries was that chimpanzees make and use tools. Gombe National Park, Tanzania.
© Hugo Van Lawick

At first, the Gombe chimps fled whenever they saw Goodall. But she persisted, watching from a distance with binoculars, and gradually the chimps allowed her closer. One day in October 1960 she saw chimps David Greybeard and Goliath strip leaves off twigs to fashion tools for fishing termites from a nest. Scientists thought humans were the only species to make tools, but here was evidence to the contrary. On hearing of Goodall's observation, Leakey said: "Now we must redefine tool, redefine Man, or accept chimpanzees as humans." This would be one of Goodall's most important discoveries.

Also in her first year at Gombe, Goodall observed chimps hunting and eating bushpigs and other animals, disproving theories that chimpanzees were primarily vegetarians and fruit eaters who only occasionally supplemented their diet with insects and small rodents.

Goodall's work in Gombe became more widely known and in 1962 she entered Cambridge University as a Ph.D. candidate, one of very few people to be admitted without a college degree. She earned her Ph.D. in ethology in 1965.

It is hard to overstate the degree to which Goodall changed and enriched the field of primatology. She defied scientific convention by giving the Gombe chimps names instead of numbers, and insisted on the validity of her observations that animals have distinct personalities, minds, and emotions. She wrote of lasting chimpanzee family relationships.

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Jane Goodall read and recorded her chimpanzee observations at Gombe National Park by candle light in her simple tent. © Jane Goodall Institute

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