I am an ecological morphologist. I study chimpanzee posture, locomotion and food-getting practices in order to better understand why apes have their peculiar anatomy. I use this knowledge to reconstruct the lifeway of our earliest ancestors, after we branched off from the apes. Studying wild primates is enormously rewarding, but it involves more drudgery and more plain hard work than most people imagine. Just getting to a primate field site can be an adventure.
Most primates eat the fruits and leaves of trees in tropical forests.
These same huge trees are prized by a logging industry that grows more active in the tropics every year. Since primates cannot live without the trees that produce their food, we primatologist's find our study subjects in remote and inaccessible areas that are not yet profitable to log. Primates are often found at the end of the trail, after asphalt has trickled to gravel, and gravel has trickled to rutted dirt tracks. Transportation to these remote areas is often a protracted, uncomfortable affair. I often travel squeezed into the seat of a public bus designed for people a head shorter than me.