Jane Goodall was a primatologist. She died from natural causes when she was 91 years old on October 1, 2025.  Jane Goodall is known for her revolutionary studies of chimpanzees in Gombe National Park, Tanzania. She discovered they use and make tools, have complex social structures, and have similar emotions to humans.

Jane Goodall spent a long time promoting humanitarian causes and the need to protect the natural environment. Jane Goodall’s most important discoveries revealed that chimpanzees, long thought to be simple animals, possess complex personalities, emotions, and social structures, including tool use, meat-eating, and compassionate behaviors once considered uniquely human.

When she first started studying chimpanzees, she didn’t just observe them. She immersed herself in every aspect of their lives, feeding them, giving them names, and forming what can only be described as personal relationships with them. The approach was criticized by some scientists who saw it as an alarming lack of scientific detachment.