I really appreciated her speaking to young people, even riding the NYC subway for the first time to record "Subway Takes" last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAkwo6JPV00
She was also on Spanish TV just five months ago, I was a bit surprised when she appeared there. Seems most of it is on YouTube as well (hoping it's not geo-restricted): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE7lnl4ah9s
When I was young, not knowing who Jane Goodall was, I was dragged into lunch by event planner who showed her around Beijing, and wondered why this lady was talking about chimpanzees so much. This was the year the Nokia released Snake, I remember getting enamoured/distracted by her monkey talk and lost a near perfect snake run.
Monkeys are just the simiiformes minus the apes. That's just a paraphyly, which is totally fine.
If you don't like paraphyletic labels for aesthetic reasons, just include the apes to make it monophyletic. The main reason we don't is that many people have strong, visceral reactions to being called a monkey.
You can't do that to fish or trees without including a bunch of things that are obviously not trees and fish.
"If it doesn't have a tail it's not a monkey, even if it has a monkey-kind-of shape. It if doesn't have a tail it's not a monkey; if it doesn't have a tail it's not a monkey: it's an ape."
She last appeared in Detroit at the Fisher theatre just three weeks ago. Knew some folks who attended and they raved about her one person show. Thought I might catch her next time she's there. But I didn't realize how old she was or I might have made it more of a priority. She was pretty high energy for someone in their nineties.
Sad to read this. But also a long life well used and, I hope, well lived. As well as some of our companions on thia planet, she helped us humans to see ourselves more clearly.
When I was 10, I was bored one day and my grandma brought me from a neighbour "In the Shadow of Man" to read, which I loved. I don't know anyone else who read that book.
The weird thing is just today I had recommended that book to a friend.
One of Gary Larson's Far Side cartoons shows two chimpanzees grooming. One finds a blonde human hair on the other and inquires, "Conducting a little more 'research' with that Jane Goodall tramp?"[114] Goodall herself was in Africa at the time. The Jane Goodall Institute thought the cartoon was in bad taste and had its lawyers draft a letter to Larson and his distribution syndicate in which they described the cartoon as an "atrocity". They were stymied by Goodall herself: when she returned and saw the cartoon, she stated that she found the cartoon amusing.[115]
Since then, all profits from sales of a shirt featuring this cartoon have gone to the Jane Goodall Institute. Goodall wrote a preface to The Far Side Gallery 5, detailing her version of the controversy, and the institute's letter was included next to the cartoon in the complete Far Side collection.[116] She praised Larson's creative ideas, which often compare and contrast the behaviour of humans and animals. In 1988, when Larson visited Goodall's research facility in Tanzania,[115] he was attacked by a chimpanzee named Frodo.
> Frodo's aggression was not limited to colobus monkeys and other chimpanzees. In May 2002, he killed a 14-month-old human child that the niece of a member of the research team had carried into his territory.[61] As a result, the Tanzanian National Parks Department considered killing Frodo.[61] In 1988, he attacked visiting Far Side cartoonist Gary Larson, leaving him bruised and scratched.[61] Frodo had a history of attacking the researchers observing him; Goodall was attacked by Frodo on multiple occasions and, in 1989, the ape beat her head so violently her neck was nearly broken.[61]
Thanks to Jane for her contributions. Some great quotes from her: "We have a choice to use the gift of our lives to make the world a better place." and “If we kill off the wild, then we are killing a part of our souls.”
You don’t have to be a biologist or zoologist to appreciate what Jane Goodall brought to the world.
Her work transcended science. It touched on compassion, respect for all living beings, and a deep curiosity about the natural world that inspired generations. She didn’t just study chimpanzees; she taught us what it means to observe with empathy, to advocate with conviction, and to act with hope. Her legacy will echo for a very long time.
“We cannot hide away from human population growth, because it underlies so many of the other problems. All these things we talk about wouldn’t be a problem if the world was the size of the population that there was 500 years ago.”
-- Goodall at 2002 WEF panel discussion on Amazon rainforest
The population 500 years ago was around 500 million. The only way we return to this level is de-industrialization.
Paul Ehrlich wrote "The Population Bomb" almost 60 years ago - all of his predictions turned out to be dead wrong.
Yeah I've seen this before, we could all drive V12s and eat only beef but it's not a very meaningful insight. We're going to stabilize around 10 billion by 2080 according to projections and then decline, hopefully reaching some kind of Star Trek utopia at some point.
We came from the caves, we didn't know any better we just multiplied like a cancer. More population also brings more benefits, more geniuses more inventions etc.
The trick is doing it without wars and inequality, good luck with that.
> hopefully reaching some kind of Star Trek utopia at some point
it is so dangerous and naive to think that utopia is possible, even if we all could agree that Star Trek is one, which we shall not, because I certainly do not think its depiction of watered down "luxury space communism with military ranks" is a desirable society.
to advocate for the death of 8 billion people is a hell of a stance. there's pro genocide and then there's... I guess this is just hating the whole species.
I think I finally kinda understand what it means when someone says they're personally touched by the loss of a celebrity. I really will miss this lady.
Sad day. Some of these folks dedicate their lives to otherwise thankless job/work with such dedication has always made me feel so positive about humanity in general I do understand when religious people do it but Goodall like people are modern day sages.
I saw her talk in London earlier this year. She was hilarious, eloquent, and inspiring. I found listening to her quite moving in a way I hadn't anticipated.
Remarkable woman. I feel thankful to have had the chance to just stand there and listen to her and look around at all the other rapt faces around me.
I remember in grade school so many in the class being inspired by her, then as I grew up every time I encountered her on television or in print she was equally inspiring, empathetic, and informative. I will miss her.
> When the strip ran, the Jane Goodall Institute was not amused, promptly drafting a cease and desist letter. Larson maintained he had no ill will towards Doctor Goodall. At the time of the controversy, Goodall had been out of the country, but saw the cartoon for herself when she returned–and loved it. Goodall instructed the institute to drop the issue. In the aftermath, Goodall reached out to Larson, and the two became friends; Larson even licensed the cartoon to the Institute to produce a t-shirt that was then used to raise funds. Goodall even went so far as to write a preface for one of The Far Side’s collected editions.
Good(all?) on her, it's nice to see leaders both have a sense of humor and actually lead.
I was fascinated by Koko's abilities and took them at face value until I saw her famous climate change speech:
> I am gorilla. I am flowers, animals. I am nature. Man Koko love. Earth Koko love. But Man stupid. Stupid! Koko sorry. Koko cry. Time hurry! Fix Earth! Help Earth! Hurry! Protect Earth. Nature see you. Thank you.
I saw that and felt like I was in crazy land. That's supposedly the kind of talking Koko's been doing this whole time?? Turns out, there was a lot of government funding into ape communication in the 70s, and when researchers figured out that apes can't meaningfully communicate, the funding dried up. Her handler, Penny Patterson, pivoted from research to PR. And how.
The gap between us and the chimpanzees is, at the same time, "tantalizingly small" and "too big".
We have learnt to communicate with them, but they also don't seem to ask questions, at least not the way that humans do.
There is obvious intelligence in their eyes and deliberation in their movements, but they seem to be content with an almost static culture. Which was also true for the Neanderthals.
What was the last subtle mutation that prodded our species onto the road of intellectual curiosity?
This was ages ago when I was in college, but the theory then was the ability to walk upright freed our hands to do other things. Chimps primarily knuckle-walk, so they can't easily carry objects (food, tools, etc) from point A to point B.
Ok, show me apes who unambiguously ask abstract questions.
The Neanderthal claim is what you can call unsubstantiated (so, one claim, not so many), but I would like to draw your attention to the extreme stability of the Mousterien industry. No Homo sapiens sapiens industry comes close to this level of stability.
"infected with exceptionalism"
So, we aren't exceptional at all? How do you square this rejection with the fact that you have never encountered, say, a written comment by a member of another species?
The word "infected" is very negative. I like intelligent animals, but no one except for us has, for example, as versatile hands as we do.
For most of human history cultural change was extremely slow, so slow as to be imperceptible. I'm not sure the neanderthals experienced any less dynamic a culture than the modern humans living at the same time.
Perhaps expecting change makes change more likely. Also, when things are scarce and life is tenuous you are less likely to experiment. Why waste the resources? Why take the risk? When surplus calories became commonplace is when cultural change took off.
I'm pretty skeptical that cultural change was meaningfully slower (except as limited by effective population sizes). Cultural change for early humans is nearly invisible in the material record. Imagine that all archaeologists of the far future find nothing from the current era except iphones without working storage. Do they indicate a unified global culture without cultural change outside WWDC?
Obviously not, even though there are aspects of a shared global culture indicated by their global distribution. Material culture is related to culture, but it's an imperfect and imprecise record. The same issue occurs with correlating culture with genetics or language.
Sure, but this is true of neanderthals as well. So we can't say we are especially creative or dynamic in our culture. We can say that our material culture, that small fragment of it that was preserved, was static.
"Also, when things are scarce and life is tenuous you are less likely to experiment. Why waste the resources? Why take the risk? When surplus calories became commonplace is when cultural change took off."
True, but not the entire picture either. From what we know, even hunters and gatherers living in inhospitable regions have a rich oral culture and extensive pantheons of gods, demigods and legendary heroes. There seems to be something in us humans that yearns for more than just calories.
> There seems to be something in us humans that yearns for more than just calories.
And we have no evidence that we are different in this from Neanderthals (arguably also humans). There is evidence of cultural variation among chimps, so there must also be cultural change. Do they yearn for things more than calories? Well, they play. They are curious.
I am extremely skeptical of claims that humans are special. We are strongly motivated to find this to be true. On the one hand, it flatters us. On the other hand, it justifies believing we are ethically distinct. This same way of thinking has been applied to other humans with results we now deplore.
Are we special, the chosen creatures? Maybe. We sure want to believe we are. It's fun and useful to be special! But maybe we should be cautious leaping to that conclusion. I think Jane Goodall was of this mind as well.
"Special" means different things for different people.
For me, humans are special in their capability to create extensive culture. That does not mean that $deity has created us in its image, it may well be a random fluke of evolution.
But we haven't seen a cave painting done by non-humans yet, nor heard a story narrated by them.
To elaborate, there seems to be a difference between physical curiosity and intellectual curiosity.
Many mammals, especially when young, are very curious about their environment, peeking, sniffing, burrowing in the ground etc. So are human children.
But the ability to ask more abstract questions "why do the stars shine?" does seem to be limited to humans alone, and maybe not even all humans. And it is very uncertain if archaic humans had it as well.
I really appreciated her speaking to young people, even riding the NYC subway for the first time to record "Subway Takes" last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAkwo6JPV00
She also was speaking on a panel just a week ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df0GWlZm3gk
She was also on Spanish TV just five months ago, I was a bit surprised when she appeared there. Seems most of it is on YouTube as well (hoping it's not geo-restricted): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE7lnl4ah9s
I will add it is one of the most watched shows on prime time.
crazy how you can just be this alive one year and then dead the next. I get 91 is old, but still
That is truly a gift, to be able to be that active until almost the end of your life.
People don't think it's like that but it is, for all of us, eventually.
My friend had tickets to see her in LA this Friday.
When I was young, not knowing who Jane Goodall was, I was dragged into lunch by event planner who showed her around Beijing, and wondered why this lady was talking about chimpanzees so much. This was the year the Nokia released Snake, I remember getting enamoured/distracted by her monkey talk and lost a near perfect snake run.
Well, technically apes don't have tails, monkeys do, so the chimpanzee talk would be an ape talk. Learned that from her too
In the same sense that "there's no such thing as a tree" or "there's no such thing as a fish", there's"no such thing as a monkey".
Monkeys are just the simiiformes minus the apes. That's just a paraphyly, which is totally fine.
If you don't like paraphyletic labels for aesthetic reasons, just include the apes to make it monophyletic. The main reason we don't is that many people have strong, visceral reactions to being called a monkey.
You can't do that to fish or trees without including a bunch of things that are obviously not trees and fish.
... unless you include apes.
"If it doesn't have a tail it's not a monkey, even if it has a monkey-kind-of shape. It if doesn't have a tail it's not a monkey; if it doesn't have a tail it's not a monkey: it's an ape."
With the one exception being Curious George.
Yeah but his tail was amputated, my neighbour had a cat without tail, bitten off by a dog or something, it's not that uncommon.
Sorry for your loss.
The snake game or her death?
She last appeared in Detroit at the Fisher theatre just three weeks ago. Knew some folks who attended and they raved about her one person show. Thought I might catch her next time she's there. But I didn't realize how old she was or I might have made it more of a priority. She was pretty high energy for someone in their nineties.
Sad to read this. But also a long life well used and, I hope, well lived. As well as some of our companions on thia planet, she helped us humans to see ourselves more clearly.
When I was 10, I was bored one day and my grandma brought me from a neighbour "In the Shadow of Man" to read, which I loved. I don't know anyone else who read that book.
The weird thing is just today I had recommended that book to a friend.
I saw her speak once many years ago. We would all be lucky to have a life as long and impactful as hers. May her memory be a blessing / זיכרונה לברכה
That's sad news. She completely changed the way we thought about primate intelligence. Fun fact: she really liked the Far Side cartoon about her.
https://static0.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/...
The full saga is humourous. from wiki.
Gary Larson cartoon incident
One of Gary Larson's Far Side cartoons shows two chimpanzees grooming. One finds a blonde human hair on the other and inquires, "Conducting a little more 'research' with that Jane Goodall tramp?"[114] Goodall herself was in Africa at the time. The Jane Goodall Institute thought the cartoon was in bad taste and had its lawyers draft a letter to Larson and his distribution syndicate in which they described the cartoon as an "atrocity". They were stymied by Goodall herself: when she returned and saw the cartoon, she stated that she found the cartoon amusing.[115]
Since then, all profits from sales of a shirt featuring this cartoon have gone to the Jane Goodall Institute. Goodall wrote a preface to The Far Side Gallery 5, detailing her version of the controversy, and the institute's letter was included next to the cartoon in the complete Far Side collection.[116] She praised Larson's creative ideas, which often compare and contrast the behaviour of humans and animals. In 1988, when Larson visited Goodall's research facility in Tanzania,[115] he was attacked by a chimpanzee named Frodo.
> In 1988, when Larson visited Goodall's research facility in Tanzania,[115] he was attacked by a chimpanzee named Frodo.
That last sentence is missing from the Wikipedia page. What is the source on it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Far_Side#Jane_Goodall_cart...
On the Jane Goodall page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Goodall#Gary_Larson_carto...
It's mentioned here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasakela_chimpanzee_community
Jesus! Frodo sounds like a bastard.
> Frodo's aggression was not limited to colobus monkeys and other chimpanzees. In May 2002, he killed a 14-month-old human child that the niece of a member of the research team had carried into his territory.[61] As a result, the Tanzanian National Parks Department considered killing Frodo.[61] In 1988, he attacked visiting Far Side cartoonist Gary Larson, leaving him bruised and scratched.[61] Frodo had a history of attacking the researchers observing him; Goodall was attacked by Frodo on multiple occasions and, in 1989, the ape beat her head so violently her neck was nearly broken.[61]
Frodo also impregnated his own mother
https://blog.michael-lawrence-wilson.com/2014/01/19/frodo-30...
Everyone's fighting for Jane Goodall but Jane Goodall apparently
Why do you say that? I'm not sure how that follows.
Thanks to Jane for her contributions. Some great quotes from her: "We have a choice to use the gift of our lives to make the world a better place." and “If we kill off the wild, then we are killing a part of our souls.”
Oh wow, I was just listening to her interview with the WSJ The Journal podcast a few days ago. Ryan Knutson may have been her last interview.
https://pca.st/episode/a724a8f6-b269-4a86-af32-18932f1efbf2
You don’t have to be a biologist or zoologist to appreciate what Jane Goodall brought to the world.
Her work transcended science. It touched on compassion, respect for all living beings, and a deep curiosity about the natural world that inspired generations. She didn’t just study chimpanzees; she taught us what it means to observe with empathy, to advocate with conviction, and to act with hope. Her legacy will echo for a very long time.
She was one of my heroes. I'm terribly saddened by this loss.
Imagine what kind of world we would live in if we put these kinds of human beings in charge instead.
Beautifully put! Her legacy will inspire generations to come.
This is sad to hear. I saw her at a lecture about 20 years ago. I remember her passion for her subject and how elegant she was.
“We cannot hide away from human population growth, because it underlies so many of the other problems. All these things we talk about wouldn’t be a problem if the world was the size of the population that there was 500 years ago.”
-- Goodall at 2002 WEF panel discussion on Amazon rainforest
The population 500 years ago was around 500 million. The only way we return to this level is de-industrialization.
Paul Ehrlich wrote "The Population Bomb" almost 60 years ago - all of his predictions turned out to be dead wrong.
Why?
Yeah I've seen this before, we could all drive V12s and eat only beef but it's not a very meaningful insight. We're going to stabilize around 10 billion by 2080 according to projections and then decline, hopefully reaching some kind of Star Trek utopia at some point.
We came from the caves, we didn't know any better we just multiplied like a cancer. More population also brings more benefits, more geniuses more inventions etc.
The trick is doing it without wars and inequality, good luck with that.
> hopefully reaching some kind of Star Trek utopia at some point
it is so dangerous and naive to think that utopia is possible, even if we all could agree that Star Trek is one, which we shall not, because I certainly do not think its depiction of watered down "luxury space communism with military ranks" is a desirable society.
to advocate for the death of 8 billion people is a hell of a stance. there's pro genocide and then there's... I guess this is just hating the whole species.
I think she advocating for fewer births. The 8 billion deaths would eventually happen by themselves, most of them of old age.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Goodall
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Goodall_Institute
I think I finally kinda understand what it means when someone says they're personally touched by the loss of a celebrity. I really will miss this lady.
Sad day. Some of these folks dedicate their lives to otherwise thankless job/work with such dedication has always made me feel so positive about humanity in general I do understand when religious people do it but Goodall like people are modern day sages.
Not sure “thankless” really applies here. She enjoyed a sort of celebrity status for the past 40-50 years and was universally loved.
Sad news. She lived an amazing life. I'll never forget seeing her and Nathan Myhrvold greet each other like chimps at a book signing in Seattle.
You mean greet each other like a chimp and a baboon.
I saw her talk in London earlier this year. She was hilarious, eloquent, and inspiring. I found listening to her quite moving in a way I hadn't anticipated.
Remarkable woman. I feel thankful to have had the chance to just stand there and listen to her and look around at all the other rapt faces around me.
Jane Goodall was a United Nations Messenger of Peace.
Jane Goodall: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Goodall
"Dr. Jane Goodall Teaches Conservation" https://www.masterclass.com/classes/jane-goodall-teaches-con...
What a phenomenal woman, scientist and activist. We could use more people like her.
Rest in peace, Jane.
I read one or maybe some (don't remember anymore) of her books about 15 or 20 years ago. Clearly a great person.
Wow she was just featured in an interview with the WSJ Journal podcast on Friday. Definitely worth a listen. Such a shame to hear this
NYT obit: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/obituaries/jane-goodall-d...
I remember in grade school so many in the class being inspired by her, then as I grew up every time I encountered her on television or in print she was equally inspiring, empathetic, and informative. I will miss her.
Jane Goodall: “My question was: How far along our human path, which has led to hatred and evil and full-scale war, have chimpanzees traveled?”
The sheer volume of a lifetime's effort in studying chimpanzees and primate behavior is huge. Her contributions are priceless.
No more will chimpanzees be able to conduct research with that tramp (https://screenrant.com/far-side-controversial-comic-strip-ja...).
> When the strip ran, the Jane Goodall Institute was not amused, promptly drafting a cease and desist letter. Larson maintained he had no ill will towards Doctor Goodall. At the time of the controversy, Goodall had been out of the country, but saw the cartoon for herself when she returned–and loved it. Goodall instructed the institute to drop the issue. In the aftermath, Goodall reached out to Larson, and the two became friends; Larson even licensed the cartoon to the Institute to produce a t-shirt that was then used to raise funds. Goodall even went so far as to write a preface for one of The Far Side’s collected editions.
Good(all?) on her, it's nice to see leaders both have a sense of humor and actually lead.
In heaven with Koko
And Harambe.
I suspect Koko's capabilities were completely over sold.
I was fascinated by Koko's abilities and took them at face value until I saw her famous climate change speech:
> I am gorilla. I am flowers, animals. I am nature. Man Koko love. Earth Koko love. But Man stupid. Stupid! Koko sorry. Koko cry. Time hurry! Fix Earth! Help Earth! Hurry! Protect Earth. Nature see you. Thank you.
I saw that and felt like I was in crazy land. That's supposedly the kind of talking Koko's been doing this whole time?? Turns out, there was a lot of government funding into ape communication in the 70s, and when researchers figured out that apes can't meaningfully communicate, the funding dried up. Her handler, Penny Patterson, pivoted from research to PR. And how.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/what-does-koko-know-about-...
Godspeed.
To anyone who hasn't seen it (especially those who are fans of Philip Glass) watch this biopic: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7207238
The gap between us and the chimpanzees is, at the same time, "tantalizingly small" and "too big".
We have learnt to communicate with them, but they also don't seem to ask questions, at least not the way that humans do.
There is obvious intelligence in their eyes and deliberation in their movements, but they seem to be content with an almost static culture. Which was also true for the Neanderthals.
What was the last subtle mutation that prodded our species onto the road of intellectual curiosity?
We still don't know.
This was ages ago when I was in college, but the theory then was the ability to walk upright freed our hands to do other things. Chimps primarily knuckle-walk, so they can't easily carry objects (food, tools, etc) from point A to point B.
So many unsubstantiated claims, you find this pattern in someone infected with exceptionalism.
Ok, show me apes who unambiguously ask abstract questions.
The Neanderthal claim is what you can call unsubstantiated (so, one claim, not so many), but I would like to draw your attention to the extreme stability of the Mousterien industry. No Homo sapiens sapiens industry comes close to this level of stability.
"infected with exceptionalism"
So, we aren't exceptional at all? How do you square this rejection with the fact that you have never encountered, say, a written comment by a member of another species?
The word "infected" is very negative. I like intelligent animals, but no one except for us has, for example, as versatile hands as we do.
What’s this about Neanderthals?
For most of human history cultural change was extremely slow, so slow as to be imperceptible. I'm not sure the neanderthals experienced any less dynamic a culture than the modern humans living at the same time.
Perhaps expecting change makes change more likely. Also, when things are scarce and life is tenuous you are less likely to experiment. Why waste the resources? Why take the risk? When surplus calories became commonplace is when cultural change took off.
I'm pretty skeptical that cultural change was meaningfully slower (except as limited by effective population sizes). Cultural change for early humans is nearly invisible in the material record. Imagine that all archaeologists of the far future find nothing from the current era except iphones without working storage. Do they indicate a unified global culture without cultural change outside WWDC?
Obviously not, even though there are aspects of a shared global culture indicated by their global distribution. Material culture is related to culture, but it's an imperfect and imprecise record. The same issue occurs with correlating culture with genetics or language.
Sure, but this is true of neanderthals as well. So we can't say we are especially creative or dynamic in our culture. We can say that our material culture, that small fragment of it that was preserved, was static.
"Also, when things are scarce and life is tenuous you are less likely to experiment. Why waste the resources? Why take the risk? When surplus calories became commonplace is when cultural change took off."
True, but not the entire picture either. From what we know, even hunters and gatherers living in inhospitable regions have a rich oral culture and extensive pantheons of gods, demigods and legendary heroes. There seems to be something in us humans that yearns for more than just calories.
> There seems to be something in us humans that yearns for more than just calories.
And we have no evidence that we are different in this from Neanderthals (arguably also humans). There is evidence of cultural variation among chimps, so there must also be cultural change. Do they yearn for things more than calories? Well, they play. They are curious.
I am extremely skeptical of claims that humans are special. We are strongly motivated to find this to be true. On the one hand, it flatters us. On the other hand, it justifies believing we are ethically distinct. This same way of thinking has been applied to other humans with results we now deplore.
Are we special, the chosen creatures? Maybe. We sure want to believe we are. It's fun and useful to be special! But maybe we should be cautious leaping to that conclusion. I think Jane Goodall was of this mind as well.
"Special" means different things for different people.
For me, humans are special in their capability to create extensive culture. That does not mean that $deity has created us in its image, it may well be a random fluke of evolution.
But we haven't seen a cave painting done by non-humans yet, nor heard a story narrated by them.
Maybe asking annoying questions?
Maybe :)
To elaborate, there seems to be a difference between physical curiosity and intellectual curiosity.
Many mammals, especially when young, are very curious about their environment, peeking, sniffing, burrowing in the ground etc. So are human children.
But the ability to ask more abstract questions "why do the stars shine?" does seem to be limited to humans alone, and maybe not even all humans. And it is very uncertain if archaic humans had it as well.