Louis Leakey and Jane

Jane met famous anthropologist and paleontologist Louis Leakey. He eventually hired her as his assistant and became her mentor. She traveled to Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania with him and his team. "I could have learned a whole lot more about fossils and become a paleontologist. But my childhood dream was as strong as ever–somehow I must find a way to watch free, wild animals living their own, undisturbed lives–I wanted to learn things that no one else knew, uncover secrets through patient observation. I wanted to come as close to talking to animals as I could.".

She began her chimpanzee study by Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania.