Dian Fossey

Born

January 16, 1932

Died

December 26, 1985 (aged 53)

Known as

anthropologist, primatologist, ethologist, zoologist, academic, writer

Dian Fossey was an American primatologist and conservationist known for undertaking an extensive study of mountain gorilla groups from 1966 until her murder in 1985. She studied them daily in the mountain forests of Rwanda, initially encouraged to work there by paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey. Gorillas in the Mist, a book published two years before her death, is Fossey's account of her scientific study of the gorillas at the Karisoke Research Center and her prior career. It is one of the sources for a 1988 film of the same name.

Biography from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.