A life among the apes with primatologist Dr. John Mitani

The PrimateCast

This episode of The PrimateCast: Origins is taken from CICASP's International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field.
The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories told by experienced researchers in primatology and related fields. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program at Kyoto University. We are releasing the audio from these lectures right here on The PrimateCast: Origins.
For anyone interested in viewing the video versions of these lectures, head over to the CICASP TV YouTube channel, where you can also watch them live as we stream our Zoom feeds there.
For the 8th international primatology lecture we invited Dr. John Mitani to share his origin story with us. This lecture took place on January 27, 2022.
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"If you find good [mentors], lean on them"
-John Mitani, 2022
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John Mitani is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, who has conducted over 40 years of research on gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos.
He is the 2022 recipient of the Charles R. Darwin Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Biological Anthropologists. And, listening to his lecture really gives one a sense of why! So much of his work found its way into the textbooks.
In the lecture, he shares many of the key discoveries he and his colleagues have made about social behavior in primates. These covered topics like:

• territoriality and indices of home range defensibility
• how ape vocalizations play a role in territorial defense and spacing
• how male orangutans can have hugely different mating strategies that coincide with huge differences in body size and other physical features
• how chimpanzee social behavior and alliances are determined by genetic relationships among males

He then goes on to provide some sage advice for any up-and-coming scholars out there. He spends a good deal of time acknowledging his mentors, and implores all of us to do the same. He also acknowledges the importance of serendipity, and the need to be opportunistic in the face of new observations.
With eloquence and humility, John tells us the story of his career, in the hopes it can provide some inspiration to those of us out there on similar paths.
One thing's for sure: I sure felt inspired after hearing him speak!

The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski.

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