Chimpanzees are our closest living relatives. In fact, chimps are more closely related to you and I than they are to other apes, like gorillas. That means we can learn a lot about ourselves by studying chimpanzees. But to really learn the secrets of these amazing animals, you can’t just watch them in a zoo. You have to venture out to where they live.

Jane Goodall’s work with wild chimpanzees in Tanzania in the 1960s was groundbreaking in many ways. No one had ever gotten wild chimpanzees to trust them enough to allow close observation of what they do. And, although people had studied captive chimpanzees for decades, she saw chimps doing things that had never been seen before. Her work revealed that wild chimpanzees have much more complex and sophisticated behaviors than people previously thought. That was true of both their individual behaviors– like fishing for termites with a stick– but also their social interactions.

But Jane Goodall’s work also proved that it was possible for wild chimpanzees to become habituated to the presence of humans. And that paved the way for other researchers to do the same...

Researchers like Dr. Jill Pruetz, who has been studying wild chimpanzees in the West African nation of Senegal since 2001 when she began the processing of habituating chimpanzees at a savanna site called Fongoli. While several other groups of forest chimps had been habituated since Jane Goodall’s work in the 1960s, no one had successfully habituated savanna chimps. Until Jill Pruetz did-- and her work has revealed that savanna chimps are quite different from forest chimps.

Jill Pruetz is Regents Professor of Anthropology at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. In addition to publishing dozens of research papers about chimps and other primates, she is also the author of several books, including her latest, Apes on the Edge: Chimpanzee Life on the West African Savanna published by The University of Chicago Press.

Learn more about Jill Pruetz’s work with savanna chimpanzees and how you can help:

Jill Pruetz's Faculty Profile at Texas State University: https://faculty.txst.edu/profile/2013121

Jill Pruetz book, Apes on the Edge: Chimpanzee Life on the West African Savanna: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo238989411.html

Neighbor Ape, a non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of chimpanzees in Senegal and to the well-being of humans that live alongside them: https://www.globalgiving.org/donate/10235/neighbor-ape/

This podcast is produced by 3Wire Creative.

Help support this podcast and future episodes by checking out Autio the perfect travel companion app for more engaging road trips. Autio is a network of stories, told by master storytellers like Kevin Costner, Phil Jackson, and John Lithgow, with the power to bring the landscape, its people, and its history alive as you pass through it.

Mentioned in this episode:

AUTIO SHOW NOTE LINK

Autio

AUTIO SHOW NOTE LINK

Autio

Please check out our affiliate link for AUTIO!

Autio is a network...

The Himalayas are the highest mountains in the world. They span some 1,500 miles through the heart of Asia, from Afghanistan to China. Having such enormous mountains makes much of the Himalayan region hard for people to access. But that doesn’t mean that nothing lives there. The Himalayas are home to some incredible types of wildlife that have adapted to the thin air, steep slopes, and very cold temperatures. But living in the upper slopes of the Himalayas makes these among the most difficult wild animals to catch a glimpse of– and even harder to photograph.

Prasenjeet Yadav is a nature and wildlife photographer from India who specializes in capturing images of elusive creatures. Prasenjeet has a background in science, having trained in a field of biology known as molecular ecology before turning to a career as a full-time photographer. His work has taken him all over his home country of India and surrounding areas. His photographs of snow leopards from the Spiti Valley in Himachal Pradesh appeared in the July 2020 issue of National Geographic magazine.

To see some of Prasenjeet Yadav’s photos of snow leopards and other wildlife, visit his website: https://www.prasenjeetyadav.com/. You can also follow him on Instagram: @prasen.yadav.

To learn more about snow leopards and ways to help protect them, visit:

Snow Leopard Trust https://snowleopard.org/

Nature Conservation Foundation https://www.ncf-india.org/

This podcast is produced by 3Wire Creative.

Help support this podcast and future episodes by checking out Autio the perfect travel companion app for more engaging road trips. Autio is a network of stories, told by master storytellers like Kevin Costner, Phil Jackson, and John Lithgow, with the power to bring the landscape, its people, and its history alive as you pass through it.

The emergence of life on land was one of the most important moments in the grand saga of life’s evolutionary history. Many of the characteristics of our bodies– like our arms, legs, hips, hands, fingers, and necks– can be traced back to adaptations that occurred during the transition from fish to amphibians. But how do we know that? What evidence exists from this time that can help us piece together the sequence of events that led our ancestors out of the water and onto land?

Neil Shubin is a paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and an award winning science communicator whose fieldwork in the Canadian Arctic is helping piece together some of the most important transitions in the history of life. He’s the Robert R Bensley Distinguished Service Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago. He’s also the author of several books, including Your Inner Fish, The Universe Within, Some Assembly Required, and a new book entitled Ends of the Earth: Journeys to the Polar Regions in Search of Life, The Cosmos, and Our Future. His team has discovered several important fossils that have helped biologists better understand how fish evolved into land animals.

Neil Shubin’s Lab at the University of Chicago: https://shubinlab.uchicago.edu/

Neil Shubin’s new book, Ends of the Earth:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/692649/ends-of-the-earth-by-neil-shubin/

Interactive 3D model of Tiktaalik fossil:

https://www.biointeractive.org/classroom-resources/tiktaalik-fossil-body

Qikiqtania - fossil fish that returned from land to water

https://shubinlab.uchicago.edu/2022/07/20/meet-qikiqtania-a-fossil-fish-with-the-good-sense-to-stay-in-the-water-while-others-ventured-onto-land/

This podcast is produced by 3Wire Creative.

Help support this podcast and future episodes by checking out Autio the perfect travel companion app for more engaging road trips. Autio is a network of stories, told by master storytellers like Kevin Costner, Phil Jackson, and John Lithgow, with the power to bring the landscape, its people, and its history alive as you pass through it.

Mentioned in this episode:

AUTIO SHOW NOTE LINK

Autio

AUTIO SHOW NOTE LINK

Autio

AUTIO SHOW NOTE LINK

Autio

Please check out our affiliate link for AUTIO!

Autio is a network of stories, told by master storytellers like Kevin Costner, Phil Jackson, and John Lithgow, with the power to bring the landscape, its people, and its history alive as you pass through it. Professionally edited and narrated, the audio vignettes combine to paint a picture you’re unlikely to get from a history book or visitor’s guide.