Biruté Galdikas, a Canadian zoologist and primatologist, is the world’s foremost authority on the orangutan, one of the world’s most endangered species. Galdikas was born shortly after the end of World War II in Germany, while her parents were en route to Canada from their homeland of Lithuania. The family settled in Toronto. Galdikas has maintained one of the longest field studies of any mammal ever recorded. Among many other “first observations,” she verified that adult orangutans live alone, unlike either gorillas or chimpanzees, and that in the wild female orangutans give birth only about every eight years.