Every day for 55 years a dedicated group of researchers, students, and Tanzanian field assistants have spent their days crawling through thorns and vines as they follow chimpanzees to observe their behavior. They write everything down in notes and on maps and checksheets. It adds up to an impressive amount of data.

This episode tells the story of the evolution of data collection at Gombe, what it's like to collect it, and what we can learn from it.

Thanks to Anne Pusey, director of the Jane Goodall Institute Research Center at Duke University, and to Emily Boehm, Joseph Feldblum and Kara Walker from Duke University.

Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation. The Leakey Foundation is proud to support ongoing research at Gombe and around the world. Since 1968, we've awarded over 35 research grants to Jane Goodall and other scientists studying chimpanzees at Gombe. Learn more and help support science at leakeyfoundation.org!

Music in this episode is by Henry Nagle and Kevin MacLeod ("Backed Vibes" Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0).

Our editor is Audrey Quinn.

Support comes from Wells Fargo Bank. Transcripts provided by Adept Word Management.

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