Every Day Is Special: Leakey

Showing posts with label Leakey. Show all posts

May 10 - Happy Birthday, Biruté Galdikas

Posted on May 10, 2020

Lithuania, USSR, Germany, Canada, US, Indonesia...

Who could ever expect her life to be so global?

Born on this day in 1946, Biruté Galdikas had Lithuanian parents who fled from the USSR's occupation of their homeland, after World War II, to Germany. That's where little Biruté was born. But when she was just two, the family moved to Canada, and that's where Galdikas was brought up.

As a teenager, Galdikas was fascinated by Jane Goodall's work with chimpanzees and Dian Fossey's work with gorillas - as reported by National Geographic Magazine.

Galdikas's family moved again, this time to the U.S., and Galdikas attended the University of California Los Angeles. She got her Bachelor's degree in psychology and zoology and her Master's in anthropology.

...And during those studies she was able to meet Louis Leakey, the guy who fostered Goodall's and Fossey's work on primates. Galdikas was able to convince him and the staff at National Geographic to send her to Borneo, which is part of Malaysia and Indonesia, in Southeast Asia.

Why Borneo? Galdikas wanted to study the great ape that had not yet been studied with the kind of long-term observation that Goodall and Fossey had given to chimps and gorillas. That last-but-not-least great ape was the orangutan.

Galdikas arrived in Borneo at age 25, and she has led what is described as the lengthiest continuous study of a mammal ever conducted.

By the way, Galdikas got her own National Geographic cover:

Galdikas is still living a global life. Her work continues in Borneo, she is a university professor in Canada and Indonesia, and she is president of the Orangutan Foundation International, headquartered in Los Angeles.

Also on this date:

Día de la Madre

Anniversary of Supreme Court ruling: tomatoes are not fruit

Astronomer Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin's birthda

Anniversary of Palindrome Day

Constitution Day in Micronesia

One Day Without Shoes

Birthday of astronaut and Space Center Director Ellen Ochoa

World Migratory Bird Day

Mother's Day in the U.S.

(Second Sunday in May)

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April 3 - Happy Birthday, Jane Goodall

Posted on April 3, 2020

Born in London, England, on this date in 1934, Jane Goodall is that rare thing: a global treasure.

When she was a child named Valerie Jane, Goodall received a stuffed chimpanzee rather than a teddy bear. Some of her mother's friends were horrified by this toy and wondered if it would give the little girl nightmares, but Goodall developed an early love for animals and is now considered the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees!

Her old toy chimpanzee still sits on Goodall's bedroom dresser.

As a young adult, Goodall went to a friend's farm in Kenya. At her friend's suggestion, she telephoned Louis Leakey, the famous archaeologist and paleontologist (and husband to paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey) to schedule a discussion about animals. She didn't know it, but Louis Leakey was sure that studying the great apes - gorillas, orangutans, and chimpanzees - could help us learn about humans (since we are also great apes!), and he was actually looking for a chimpanzee researcher.

But he didn't telI Goodall that right away. Instead, he offered her a job as a secretary. He soon sent her to Tanzania and later funded her research in Gombe Stream National Park.

(Leakey also eventually asked Dian Fossey to study gorillas and Birute Galdikas to study orangutans as well.)

Here are a few interesting facts about the beginning of Goodall's chimpanzee research:

As I mentioned, Goodall was quite young when she first went to Africa. By the time she was heading to Gombe Stream National Park, she was 26 years old. The chief warden of the national park was worried about her safety but was satisfied when Goodall's mom arranged to accompany her.

(Her mom! I was assuming that the warden was mostly worried about wild animals, so I was surprised that her mother was the guardian that made this venture safe.)

Even more interesting, Goodall didn't have a college degree! Not yet, at least. In 1962, when Goodall was old-for-undergraduate-college at age 28, Leakey funded her attendance at the highly-respected University of Cambridge. Like I said, she was old for undergraduate work - and Cambridge didn't make her do that! Instead, she was allowed to study for a PhD in ethology (the study of animal behavior) even though she had no BA or BSc. She earned her doctorate in just three years.

Goodall was actually the eighth person in the history of Cambridge allowed to study for a PhD without first having obtained a Bachelor's Degree.

But that was just the start. Goodall became legendary in primatology (the study of primates) and conservation, animals-rights, and humanitarian movements. She was named a U.N. Messenger of Peace and became an honorary member of the World Future Council. She was named a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (like being knighted and dubbed "Sir Whatever" - but for women).

Goodall was even honored by the Walt Disney Company with a plaque on the Tree of Life at Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park, in Orlando.

And more than 40 films have been made about her!

I could go on and on with the honors heaped upon Jane Goodall, but instead will link to the website of the Jane Goodall Institute.

By the way, I got to hear Goodall speak live, once. And I loved the fact that Goodall points out that, when she dreamed about living with and studying animals, people told her, "'How can you do that? Africa is far away, we don’t know much about it. You don’t have any money in your family. You’re just a girl.’”

Jane Goodall didn't let the nay-sayers stop her, and neither should you!

Also on this date:

National Tweed Day

Canada's Got Talent

Find a Rainbow, Share a Rainbow Day

World Party Day

Anniversary of the start of the Pony Express

Conservationist John Burroughs's birthday

Weed Out Hate: Sow the Seeds of Greatness Day

Anniversary of first flight over Mount Everest

Don't Go to Work Unless It's Fun Day

Birthday of the "Einstein of Structural Engineering, Fazlur Rahman Khan

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February 6 – Happy Birthday, Mary Leakey

Posted on February 6, 2014

She discovered ancient hominid and other ape skulls. She dug up tools created by humanity's ancient ancestors. She discovered hominid footprints that were made more than 3.6 million years ago. She discovered 15 new species of animals and one new genus.

Mary Leakey, born on this date in 1903, in London, England, was a paleoanthropologist. That means she studied early humans and human ancestors.

She married another paleoanthropologist, Louis Leakey, and she helped train her sons in the science as well.

The Leakeys have made many contributions to our knowledge of human evolution. One of their most famous dig sites was at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, Africa. Mary Leakey also made major discoveries at another Tanzanian site called Laetoli.

Find out more about early humans by checking out some of the kids' resources Mr. Donn has gathered here.

I was interested in Mary Leakey's early life. What was her childhood like, that she ended up going into such an adventurous field?

I discovered that her father Erskine Nicol was a painter, and the family moved from place to place as he painted watercolor landscapes. He was also an enthusiast about Ancient Egypt, and the family lived in Egypt for a while. Mary loved to go on long exploratory walks with her father wherever they lived. You can see that she had an adventurous childhood!

Her mother's family, also, was far from boring! Mary's mother, Cecilia Frere, had relatives that included an antiquarian and an archeologist. Also, during the 1800s the Frere family had been active in trying to end slavery in the British colonial empire. They had even established communities for freed slaves, including Freretown, Kenya (Africa); Freretown, South Africa; and Freretown, India.

Now, this is impressive: In 1925, the family was living in France, in Les Eyzies, just when Elie Peyrony was excavating one of the caves in which archeologists had discovered signs of prehistoric humans. Although Mary was just 12 years old, she got permission to go through Peyrony's dump, and she became hooked on prehistory! She made a collection of points, scrapers, and blades that she found in the dump, and she even developed a system of classification!

If you know anything about modern archeology, you might be wondering why Peyrony would've missed points, scrapers, and blades in his dig! Why on earth would such valuable stuff be in his dump?

You see, back in the early 1900s, archeology was still in an early stage, and excavations were not made systematically and scientifically. It was more like a treasure hunt—think Indiana Jones!—than like the patient and painstaking uncovering of evidence that it is today. These days, shards of pottery and bones from ancient trash pits are photographed, measured, and catalogued as carefully as are golden goblets and entire skulls!

Also on this date: