The Leakey Foundation

06/04/2026

The Baldwin Fellowship supports outstanding students from countries with limited opportunities for advanced education in human origins. This year, we have more high-quality applications than we can fund.

We need $10,000 to close the gap, and a generous sponsor has offered to match every gift dollar-for-dollar. That means we only need to raise $5,000 to reach our goal. Please give if you can. Every donation makes a difference!

The Baldwin Fellowship supports outstanding students from countries with limited opportunities for advanced education in human origins. This year, we received more high-quality applications than we can fund. We need $10,000 to close the gap, and a generous sponsor has offered to match every gift dol...

06/03/2026

A sweet and relaxing mountain gorilla moment for your Wednesday. In this video, Silverback Isango Gakuru of the Hirwa group plays and rests with infant Tsinda. This was recorded by Leakey Foundation grantee Dominic Mayo during his fieldwork in Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park. ⁠
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📸 Dominic Mayo and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund

06/02/2026

Can you spot the lemur? Nocturnal lemurs like this pale fork-marked lemur (Phaner pallescens) can be ridiculously difficult to find and study. These small, critically endangered lemurs are active at night and communicate using distinct vocal calls.⁠
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By recording and analyzing their calls, Eva Stela Nomenjanahary aims to understand the different meanings and functions‚ such as keeping in touch with group members, avoiding predators, or attracting mates. She's especially interested in how these calls change in response to human disturbances like habitat loss and climate change. ⁠
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Using passive acoustic monitoring, Eva is developing non-invasive tools that help researchers and conservationists detect species, understand their behavior, and assess the impact of environmental change.⁠
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Eva's PhD research at the University of Colorado Boulder is supported by a Leakey Foundation Baldwin Fellowship. ⁠
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📸 1 +2: Michael A. Alcorn, CC-BY via iNaturalist⁠
📸 3: Guilherme Siniciato Terra Garbino, CC-BY via iNaturalist⁠
📸 4: Eva Stela Nomenjanahary setting a transect line in the New Protected Area, Ambohitr'Antsingy, Montagne des Français, Madagascar. Photo by Miricia Minazara

05/19/2026

Did Neanderthals practice dentistry? A new study of a 59,000-year-old molar from Siberia’s Chagyrskaya Cave shows evidence of an ancient invasive dental procedure. "Basically a root canal," says Leakey Foundation grantee John Olsen, an archaeologist at the University of Arizona and a co-author of the paper.

The prehistoric hominins “apparently were very adept at what we would consider invasive medicine,” said the anthropologist John Olsen.

05/13/2026

Data from Antarctica could help to solve the mystery of why ice ages were so brutal.

05/09/2026

Looking for something interesting to read this weekend? Check out the 11 long-form interviews in our Oral History of Human Origins Research. The collection is full of amazing stories from people who have shaped our understanding of human evolution.

The Oral History of Human Origins Research preserves the personal stories of the people who shape our understanding of human origins.

05/09/2026

Meet the "Black Skull" (KNM-WT-17000). This beautiful fossil didn't start off black. Like all living bone, it was originally white. It gained its striking dark color over 2.5 million years by absorbing manganese from Kenya's mineral-rich soil. ⁠
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Alan Walker discovered this specimen in 1985 at the Lomekwi site in West Turkana. It has the largest sagittal crest of any early hominin, a massive ridge on top of the skull that anchored its powerful jaw muscles for chewing.⁠
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The fossil had a mix of features so unusual that researchers initially couldn't decide which species it belonged to. This ultimately led to the naming of an entirely new species, Paranthropus aethiopicus. The Black Skull is the only known adult skull of the species.⁠
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Photo 1 provided by Dr. Carol Ward.⁠
Photo 2 shows the general location where the Black Skull was found. Picture via NASA.

05/08/2026

Happy 100th birthday to Sir David Attenborough. Thank you for helping generations explore the natural world with wonder, understanding, and care.

Sir David Attenborough has mastered the craft of storytelling, inspiring generations of people to love the natural world.

05/05/2026

04/28/2026

1.5 million years ago, a hominin walking along a Kenyan lakeshore slipped into a deep hippo footprint and caught themselves on their right foot to avoid falling. We can see exactly where it happened because the moment was preserved in a fossil footrpint trackway.
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A team led by Kay Behrensmeyer found these fossil trackways in 1978 near Lake Turkana. ⁠
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The excavated surface shows the hominin trackway, along with footprints of hippos, a large bird, and other animals. For the photo, scientists filled the hominin tracks and a few other footprints with dark sand so they would stand out against the light-colored sediment. ⁠
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Hear about this discovery and more at "Fossils, Ecology, and Human Evolution" from Dr. Kay Behrensmeyer - April 28 at the California Academy of Sciences. Ticket link in the first comment. ⁠
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Photos 1 and 2 by Kay Behrensmeyer⁠
Photos 3 and 4 courtesy of Briana Pobiner.