Achievement

McFarlin (faculty) and colleagues have recovered the skeletons of 100 mountain gorillas in Rwanda, representing the largest single collection of mountain gorilla skeletal remains in the world. To be curated in Rwanda where it can be available to local and visiting scholars, the collection includes many gorillas who were observed in life by Fossey and the Karisoke Research Center, and for whom detailed life history records are available. By integrating existing primatological, health, and environmental data with new research on hard tissue biology, McFarlin and colleagues, including IGERT trainees, are conducting the first-ever study of the impacts of documented life events, social, and environmental factors on the developing microanatomy of bones and teeth in wild great apes. This research provides new insight into the conservation biology of endangered mountain gorillas, and an important model for examining the evolution of human life history.