The Leakey Foundation

08/24/2026

This is a Northern purple-faced langur mother with her infant. These endangered primates live only in Sri Lanka. They spend most of their time in the trees, and they eat mostly leaves.

Leakey Foundation grantee Roberta Salmi and her colleagues at the Kaludiyapokuna Primate Conservation & Research Center are studying whether these langurs are interbreeding with gray langurs, how often it happens, and what effects this might have on their behavior, biology, and future survival. This work helps us better understand how new traits emerge through hybridization, and how this process may have influenced human evolution as well.

📸 1. Eric Lendenh
2. Courtesy of Roberta Salmi

08/21/2026

This is Alesi, a 13-million-year-old fossil primate skull, about the size of a lemon. It was found by John Ekusi in a place called Napudet in Kenya as part of a project led by the late Dr. Isaiah Nengo. The fossil is the skull of an infant, and it is the most complete extinct ape skull known in the fossil record. ⁠
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Many of the most informative parts of the skull are preserved inside the fossil, and to make these visible, the team used an extremely sensitive form of 3D X-ray imaging at the synchrotron facility in Grenoble, France.⁠
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Dr. Nengo, who died unexpectedly in 2022, was a multiple-time Leakey Foundation grantee. When his team's discovery was published in Nature in 2017, he wrote, "Nyanzapithecus alesi was part of a group of primates that existed in Africa for over 10 million years. What the discovery of Alesi shows is that this group was close to the origin of living apes and humans, and that this origin was African."⁠
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📸 1. Alesi, the skull of the new extinct ape species Nyanzapithecus alesi (KNM-NP 59050). Fred Spoor.⁠
2. Akai Ekes and John Ekusi watch as Isaiah Nengo lifts⁠
the sandstone block with Alesi after six hours of⁠
excavation. Isaiah Nengo.⁠
3. Alesi after attached sandstone rock was partially removed at the Turkana Basin Insitute, near Lodwar, Kenya. Isaiah Nengo, Photo by Christopher Kiarie.⁠
4. Experimental setup at the European Synchrotron Radiation facility, used for the high-resolution X-ray scanning of Alesi. The skull is mounted on a rotation stage in front of the detector, and a laser beam is used for accurate alignment. Paul Tafforeau.⁠
5. Discovery site at Napudet, west of Lake Turkana, Kenya. The red flag marks where Alesi was found. Isaiah Nengo.

08/19/2026

Today is World Orangutan Day, a day to learn about, celebrate, and support our critically endangered ape cousins. These photos are from the Gunung Palung Orangutan Project, one of the world's longest-running studies of wild orangutans. ⁠
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For more than 30 years, researchers have studied a population or orangutans deep in the rainforest of Gunung Palung National Park in Indonesian Borneo. Every month, they monitor thousands of trees, follow wild orangutans from dawn until dusk, collect non-invasive biological samples, and record the changes that only decades of continuous observation can reveal. This uninterrupted record has become one of the world's most valuable resources for understanding how great apes adapt to environmental change and for guiding their conservation. ⁠
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When they unexpectedly lost their federal funding in 2025, The Leakey Foundation stepped in to help keep them going. ⁠
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Click the link in the first comment to read the story!
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📸 1 and 2 - By Tim Laman⁠
3-7 Gunung Palung Orangutan Project

08/17/2026

On this day in 1936, the quarry manager at Sterkfontein Caves in South Africa handed Robert Broom a fossilized brain endocast and asked, "Is this what you're after?" This led to the discovery of TM1511, the first adult Australopithecus cranium with teeth ever found.

R.J. Clarke1 and Lazarus Kgasi2 1 Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2 DITSONG: National Museum of Natural History, Pretoria Introduction The Transvaal Museum, now named the DITSONG: Museum of Natural History, Pretoria, is internationally renowned as the cu...

08/14/2026

Florence Aghomo studies a species of endangered lemurs called Propithecus edwardsi. These lemurs live only in a small area of rainforest in southeastern Madagascar, and nearly half of their total population is estimated to be in Ranomafana National Park. This park is crossed by large rivers, and the lemur habitat has been impacted by human activity like logging, road building, and illegal mining. ⁠
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With support from a Leakey Foundation Baldwin Fellowship, Florence is pursuing a PhD at Stony Brook University. Her project aims to assess the demographic and genetic status of the P. edwardsi population in the park, as their numbers are currently unknown. Her research will answer important open questions about this vulnerable species, informing a conservation strategy for their long-term survival. ⁠
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In addition to her research and PhD program, Florence coordinates a global network of approximately 350 primatologists through the Red Colobus Conservation Network and serves as President of the Cameroon Primatological Society. ⁠
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📸 by Florence Aghomo⁠
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1-2 Florence Aghomo in the field with Ranomafana National Park in the background.⁠
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3-Florence Aghomo and her field assistant, Mirana Falitiana Randrianaivo, from the University of Antananarivo, Madagascar.⁠
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4- Propithecus edwardsi mother and her baby. This species is an endangered lemur that produces a single offspring approximately every two years and has a relatively high infant mortality rate of almost 50%⁠
before age 1.⁠
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5- A moment of quiet balance in the canopy – this Propithecus edwardsi⁠
sits comfortably on a branch, using its upper limbs to grasp its lower limbs.⁠
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6- Under the moonlight in Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar.⁠
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7-A view of the surrounding landscape from the hilly northern area of the Ranomafana National Park.⁠
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08/11/2026

ICMYI - We're thrilled to announce the 2026 Leakey Foundation Baldwin Fellows. Please join us in congratulating the 17 new and returning fellows!

Meet the 2026 Baldwin Fellows. This year, 17 scholars from 10 countries received fellowships, empowering them to become leaders in their chosen fields.

08/07/2026

Louis Leakey was born on this day in 1903. He was a charismatic and visionary scientist who devoted his life to uncovering our past, telling our shared human story, and mentoring researchers like Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birutė Mary Galdikas. ⁠
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He worked tirelessly to establish Africa's central role in human evolution, sparking a fundamental shift in our understanding of our origins.⁠
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Louis also knew that uncovering our past required collaboration across fields, from archaeology to zoology.⁠ His vision for interdisciplinary research and science education inspired the creation of The Leakey Foundation and continues to inform how we carry out our mission. ⁠
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In addition to his family, Louis Leakey's legacy lives on through the scientists, students, and supporters who continue his quest to explore and explain the wonders of human evolution.⁠
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Thank you for being part of Louis's story. We could not do this work without you, and we are so grateful!⁠
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⁠Photo 1 by Melville B. Grosvenor/National Geographic/Getty Images⁠
Photos 2-5 Leakey Foundation Archive⁠
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1. by Melville B. Grosvenor/National Geographic via The Leakey Foundation Archive⁠
2-8 Leakey Foundation Archive

08/04/2026

The Old Man of La Chapelle was discovered on this day in 1908, buried in a small cave near La Chapelle-aux-Saints, France. This was the first relatively complete Neanderthal skeleton ever found. This individual was likely very old when he died and had lost many teeth while alive. He may have needed help from other Neanderthals to survive during his final years. ⁠
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📸 1. Eunostos - CC-BY-4.0⁠
2. The first three stereographs from Boule’s L’Homme de La Chapelle (1911) — Scanned by Lydia Pyne - via Public Domain Review⁠
3. Left hand side of one of Boule’s stereographs included in his L’Homme de La Chapelle (1911) — Scanned by Lydia Pyne - via Public Domain Review⁠
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08/04/2026

1.4 million-year-old fossil footprints found in Kenya hint that Paranthropus boisei, an ancient human relative, was much larger than previously thought.

New evidence suggests the extinct hominin Nutcracker Man was nearly 2 feet taller and dozens of pounds heavier than once thought and sometimes traveled in groups.

07/29/2026

New Origin Stories episode! Humans are the only animals that get dressed every day. How, when, and why did we start wearing clothes, and how can we know? In this new episode, paleoanthropologist Nina Jablonski traces the history of clothing as both a survival technology and as one of our oldest and most powerful forms of self-expression.

Listen to The Not So Naked Ape: The Origins of Clothing from Origin Stories wherever you get your podcasts!