CHIMP CHAMP.

Meet the world's most famous expert on animal behavior.

At 26, Jane Goodall had no college education or science training. But she had a passion for animals since childhood, and ultimately her discoveries about chimpanzees' behavior revolutionized the way scientists view animals today.

At age four, Goodall went to stay on her grandparents' farm. One chore was to collect eggs. When no adult could give her a satisfactory answer to how the eggs got there, Jane hid under straw in a henhouse for four hours until a chicken plopped an egg in its nest. That love of observation took shape in her dream to one day work closely with animals--in Africa. "All through my childhood people said you can't go to Africa. You're a girl," Goodall says. "But my mother used to say, if you really want to, there's nothing you can't do."

In 1957, the 26-year-old Goodall journeyed to Kenya to work as a secretary. She also arranged to meet the legendary paleontologist Louis Leakey--who was so impressed by her enthusiasm he hired her as his personal assistant. She accompanied him on anthropological digs, and in 1960 Leakey sent Goodall to live among chimpanzees in the remote Gombe animal preserve, recording the animals' behavior and interactions.

For three months Goodall made little progress. But she says, "I never came close to giving up." Her breakthrough came one day when she spied a male chimp she named "David Greybeard" off in the distance. Through binoculars she saw him stick a blade of grass into a termite mound, then put the grass in his mouth. Afterward she approached the mound and imitated him. Pulling the grass out, she discovered dozens of termites clinging to it. The discovery--that some animals use tools--was unknown to most scientists at the time.

Goodall also saw chimpanzees exhibit humanlike emotions, such as jealousy and love. But she also discovered they were capable of violent attacks against each other.

Dr. Jane, as Goodall came to be known, worked with chimps for 25 years. She also received her Ph.D. in ethology (study of animal behavior) at England's Cambridge University. Now she crisscrosses the globe raising money to preserve wildlife habitats and protect chimpanzees from hunters and poachers. "I love being in the forest with the chimps," she says. "I'd much rather be there than messing around in cities and airports."

* Primatologists earn $35,000 and up a year.

For more on Goodall and her work, check out: www.janegoodall.com

Chimp Life

In East Africa, chimpanzees poke twigs into an anthill, then savor insects one at a time. In West Africa, chimps sweep up dozens of ants on a stick and consume the entire bunch. These small differences in chimp habits spell big news for primatologists (scientists who study primates).

Until recently scientists thought only humans passed on certain behaviors and habits to their offspring through teaching and imitation. But new primate research (including Jane Goodall's findings) shows that chimps do the same.

Young chimps observe and imitate their parents to learn grooming, courting, and using tools--and two chimp groups divided by a river do things in different ways. "This is cultural behavior," says Scottish primatologist Andrew Whiten. "One chimpanzee learns from another, in contrast to inheriting behaviors through genetics." In other words, chimps, like you, got culture!

Adapted from Biography magazine [C] 2000. A&E Television Networks.