Beauty and the Beasts

"Female primatologists study chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas in many hazardous locations all over the world. The number of women in the field is startling. A few were once recruited by the famous Dr. Louis Leakey because he believed women to be more empathic and less biased observers. He proved right. Others followed, and today 62% of all primatologists are women."

"It is an impressive array of scientists: Jane Goodall, of course, and Dian Fossey (who was actually killed in the course of her work), and less celebrated but no less accomplished women, like Mary Leakey, Shirley McGrill, Birute Galdikas and others, who also braved everything from civil war to enraged simians with fangs bared. Their stories are a monument to forty years of dauntless scientific labors and a testament to these real heroines."--Jacket.