Chimpanzees – Dispatches From The Front

Jane Goodall, the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees, has died at the age of 91, the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) confirmed in a statement on Wednesday (Oct. 1). Goodall died of natural causes in Los Angeles, California, while on a speaking tour.

Goodall “was a remarkable example of courage and conviction, working tirelessly throughout her life to raise awareness about threats to wildlife, promote conservation, and inspire a more harmonious, sustainable relationship between people, animals, and the natural world,” the JGI statement reads.

Dame Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall was born on April 3, 1934, in London. As a child, Goodall was fond of animals, including the 1920 book “The Story of Dr. Dolittle,” and intrigued by the ecosystems of Africa. On a trip to Kenya in 1957, she met paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, who convinced Goodall that studying the behavior of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) might provide insights into the behavior of early human ancestors.

Chimpanzees, along with bonobos, are humans’ closest living relatives. In fact, you may have heard that humans and chimps share 98.8% of their DNA.

But is this actually true? And what does “similar DNA” actually mean?

The truth is that the frequently cited 98.8% similarity between chimp (Pan troglodytes) and human (Homo sapiens) DNA overlooks key differences in the species’ genomes, experts told Live Science.

Human and chimp DNA is made of four basic building blocks, or nucleotides: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T). The genomes of both species can be thought of as a “string of the letters A, C, G and T … about 3 billion letters long,” David Haussler, scientific director at the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute, told Live Science in an email.

When scientists compare human and chimp DNA, they identify the letter (nucleotide) sequence in both genomes and look for stretches of DNA where there is a lot of overlap between the two genomes. Then, they count the number of matching letters in these regions.

Tag: Chimpanzees

Jane Goodall, famed primatologist who discovered chimpanzee tool use, dies at 91 | Live Science