American primatologist, author, and conservationist

Fossey is known for her extended study of Mountain Gorillas in the forested mountains of Rwanda from 1966 until her murder in 1985. In 1983, she published her book, Gorillas in the Mist, which chronicled her study and was subsequently made into a movie. Fossey was originally sent by Louis Leakey to study the great apes and with Jane Goodall (chimpanzees), and Birutė Galdikas (orangutans) formed the prominent female scientific group the “Trimates.”