Conservationist Dame Jane Goodall, a world-leading expert on chimpanzees, has died aged 91.
Her observations helped to reveal how closely related humans are to chimpanzees. She also worked tirelessly for conservation projects around the world
Dr Goodall died of natural causes while in California on a speaking tour of the US, according to a statement from the Jane Goodall Institute.
It said her discoveries “revolutionised science” and that she was “a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world”.
Dr Goodall said she became fascinated by animals after reading Dr Doolittle as a child growing up in London.
She met leading primatologist Louis Leakey while staying on a friend’s farm in Africa in her mid-twenties.
Although she had no qualifications, Mr Leakey saw her potential and helped arrange her first research trip to the jungles of Tanzania in 1960.
That year, she became the first person to record witnessing an animal using a tool: a large male chimpanzee digging termites out of a mound with a stick.
Until then, it was thought only humans were intelligent enough to do so. Her observations would shape the future of evolutionary science.
Her work was published in leading journals, and in 1965 she made the front cover of National Geographic, introducing the world to the emotional and social lives of the primates.
She featured in a television documentary narrated by Orson Welles, which saw her playing and wrestling with baby chimps.
After her experiences in the field she became an activist, working to free chimpanzees kept in zoos, or in captivity for medical research.
The Jane Goodall Institute said it learned of her death on Wednesday.
