British primatologist Dame Jane Goodall, known for her ground-breaking studies involving chimpanzees, has died aged 91.

She died from "natural causes" on Wednesday in California where she was on a speaking tour of the United States.

A post on her Facebook page said: "The Jane Goodall Institute has learned this morning, Wednesday, October 1, 2025, that Dr. Jane Goodall DBE, UN Messenger of Peace and Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute has passed away due to natural causes. She was in California as part of her speaking tour in the United States.

"Dr. Goodall's discoveries as an ethologist revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world."

Dr Goodall was widely considered the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees.

She began her research aged 26 in east Africa in 1960 observing chimpanzees and revealed their capability to engage in complex social behaviours like tickling.

Speaking to the BBC in 1986, she said: "Apparently, from the time I was about one and a half or two, I used to study insects, anything, and this gradually evolved and developed and grew and then I read books like Dr Dolittle and Tarzan, then it had to be Africa that was my goal."

The list of awards Dr Goodall was given ran to nine pages on her CV, and she was an inspirational role model for young women in science through her high-profile and groundbreaking work in a male-dominated field.

In 2002, she was designated a UN Messenger of Peace, later telling the UN: “I think it's more important than ever in the world we live in today that we have a vision of what it would be like to live in a peaceful world, the kind of world we all want, and then to see what we as individuals can do to try and bring that about.”